PROBABILITY
SIT 191
Probability is the branch of math which deals with the likelihood of an
event occurring.
There are mainly four schools of thought on probability namely:
1) The classical or a priori approach,
2) The relative frequency or empirical approach,
3) The axiomatic approach, and
4) The personalistic approach
Definitions
• The sample space is defined as the set of all possible outcomes of an
experiment.
• Mutually exclusive events -If two events, A and B, are mutually
exclusive, they have no common sample points. 𝑃 𝐴 𝑜𝑟 𝐵 = 𝑃 𝐴 +
𝑃(𝐵)
𝑃(𝐴 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐵)
• Conditional Probability, 𝑃 𝐴\B =
𝑃(𝐵)
Probability Distribution
Discrete Probability Distribution
• Bernoulli distribution
• Binomial distribution
• Poisson distribution
• Geometric distribution
• Hypergeometric distribution.
Continuous Probability Distribution
• Uniform
• Normal distribution
• Gamma distribution
• Beta distribution
Example 1 (Conditional Probability)
Suppose that city records produced the following probability data of a driver being in an accident:
Accident No Accident
Rain 25 335
No Rain 15 625
Find the following:
i. Probability of no rain.
ii. Probability of an accident and no rain.
iii. Probability of an accident, given no rain.
Example 2 (BINOMIAL)
Tom and Jerry play each other at badminton and for each game, independently of all others, the probability that Tom loses is 0.2 Find the
probability that, in 9 games, Tom loses
i. exactly 2 of the games,
i. fewer than half of the games
Example 3 (Poisson)
A café serves breakfast every morning. Customers arrive for breakfast at random at a rate of 1 every 5 minutes. Find the probability that fewer
than 3 customers arrive for breakfast on a Monday morning between 10 am and 11 am.
Example 4 (UNIFORM)
Suppose buses arrive randomly between 10 and 20 minutes. 𝑋~𝑈(10,20)
i. Find 𝑃 12 < 𝑋 < 15
ii. 𝑃(𝑋 < 15)
iii. Mean
iv. Variance
Exercise
1. A financial consultant has an average of six customers arrive each
day. The consultant’s overhead requires that at least five customers
arrive in order that fees cover expenses. Find the probability of 0
through 4 customers arriving in a given day. What is the probability
that at least five customers arrive?
2. If the random variable 𝑋 follows a Poisson distribution with mean
4.3, find 𝑃(𝑋 = 4)
More Exercises on separate pdf. Focus on the three distributions
(Binomial, Poisson, Uniform)
NEXT….HYPOTHESIS TESTING