S
PROBABILITY
Terms in probability
[Link] Experiment
An experiment whose results can never be predicted in advance is called a random
experiment
Ex: Tossing a coin , throwing a dice, drawing a card from a well shuffled pack of 52 cards
are examples of random experiment.
Sample space
In probability theory, the sample space of an experiment or trial is the set of all possible
outcomes or results of that experiment. A sample space is usually denoted as S, using set
notation, and the possible ordered outcomes are listed as elements in the set.
EX: Tossing A Coin: When we toss a coin, there can be only two outcomes i.e., either head
S= { H , T }
or tail. So the sample space
Each member of the sample space is called sample point
Event
An event is a subset of the sample space.
In other words, the empty set ϕ is an impossible event and the sample space S is a sure
event.
Simple Events. Any event consisting of a single point of the sample space is known as a
simple event in probability. For example, if S = {56 , 78 , 96 , 54 , 89} and E =
{78} then E is a simple event
. if any event consists of more than one point of the sample space then such an event is
called a compound event.
if S = {56 ,78 ,96 ,54 ,89}, E1 = {56 ,54 }, E2 = {78 ,56 ,89 } then, E1 and E2 represent two
compound events.
independent event and dependent events.
If the occurrence of any event is completely unaffected by the occurrence of any other
event, such events are known as an independent event in probability and the events which
are affected by other events are known as dependent events.
Mutually Exclusive events
If the occurrence of one event excludes the occurrence of another event, such events are
mutually exclusive events i.e. two events don’t have any common point. For example, if S =
{1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6} and E1, E2 are two events such that E1 consists of numbers less than 3 and
E2 consists of numbers greater than 4.
So, E1 = {1,2} and E2 = {5,6} . Then, E1 and E2 are mutually exclusive
Exhaustive cases
A set of events is called exhaustive if all the events together consume the entire sample
space. That is total possible outcomes of the experiment
Exhaustive number of cases when a coin is tossed once =2=21
Exhaustive number of cases when a coin is tossed twice=4=22
When it is tossed n times =2n
Exhaustive number of cases when a dice is tossed n times=6n
*The probability of a sure event is always 1 while the probability of an impossible
event is always 0.
Equally likely cases
Cases are said to be equally likely if each occurrences have equal preference
EX:Playing a Card: In a deck, there are 52 ordinary playing cards. In this all 52 cards are
of the same size and therefore, it is assumed as equally likely outcome of each card i.e., 1/52
Throwing a Dice: There are six “6” possible outcomes when rolling a single dice. In this
case all the six outcomes are assumed to be equally likely outcome. Each has a probability
of occurrence 1/6.
Definition of probability
If there are n exhaustive,mutually exclusive and equally likely cases of which m are
favourable to an event A,then the probability of happening of A is P(A)=m/n
favourablenumberofcases
P( A )=
tota ln umberofcases
and P(A1)=1-P(A)
Axioms of probability
Probability is a number that is assigned to each member of a collection of events from
a random experiment that satisfies the following properties
If S is the sample space and E is any event in a random experiment
(1)P(S)=1
0≤P( E )≤1
(2)
E1 ∩E2 =φ P( E1 ∪E2 )=P (E 1 )+ P (E 2 )
(3)For two events E1 and E2 with , Then
That is if E1 andE2 are mutually exclusive.