PROBABILITY
PROBABILITY: The Numerical evaluation of chance factor of an event is known as
probability.
Example: 1. Arrival of bus in its scheduled time.
2. Business making a profit. Etc
Note: Probability can be applicable only for uncertainty of data.
BASIC CONCEPTS OF PROBABILITY
EXPERIMENT: An activity which yields the results is known as Experiment.
RANDOM EXPERIMENT: It is an experiment in which all possible outcomes are known,
which can be repeated many number of times and it can’t be predicted in advance.
Example: Tossing of a coin is a random experiment
TRIAL: Conducting a random experiment once is known as trial.
Event: The possible outcome of a random experiment is known as event.
Example: In rolling a die, an event could be rolling an even number (2, 4, or 6).
SIMPLE EVENT: An event that consists of a single outcome.
Example: Rolling a 3 on a die is a simple event.
COMPOSITE EVENT: An event that consists of two or more simple events combined.
Example: Rolling a number greater than 4 (which includes the outcomes 5 and 6) is a
composite event.
SAMPLE SPACE: The set of all possible outcomes of a probability experiment.
Example: For a die roll, the sample space is {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
INDEPENDENT EVENTS: Two or more events are independent if the occurrence of one does
not depends on the occurrence of the other.
Example: Tossing a coin and rolling a die are independent events; the result of one does
not influence the other.
EQUALLY LIKELY EVENTS: Events that have the same probability of occurring.
Example: In a fair coin toss, the events of landing heads and tails are equally likely, each
with a probability of 0.5.
MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS: Events are said to be mutually exclusive if the
occurrence of one event excludes the occurrence of other event.
The mathematically two events A and B are said to be disjoint if AՈB = Φ
Example: When rolling a die, the events of rolling a 2 and rolling a 5 are mutually
exclusive since both outcomes cannot occur simultaneously.
EXHAUSTIVE EVENTS: A set of events is exhaustive if at least one of the events must
occur; they cover all possible outcomes.
Example: The events "rain" and "no rain" are exhaustive regarding the weather on any
given day.
SURE (OR) CERTAIN EVENT: If all possible outcomes are favorable to an event is known
as sure event. The probability of sure event is one.
Example: In a die roll, the event "a number less than 7" is a sure event, as all outcomes
(1-6) satisfy this condition.
IMPOSSIBLE EVENT: If none of the outcome is favorable to an event is known as impossible
event. The probability of an impossible event is zero
Example: Rolling a 7 on a standard six-sided die is an impossible event.
COMPLEMENTARY EVENT: A complementary event refers to the event that represents all
outcomes in the sample space that are not included in a particular event. If you have an event 𝐴̅,
the complement of 𝐴̅, includes all the outcomes that are not part of event A.
Key Points
The probability of the complementary event can be calculated using the formula:
P(𝐴̅)=1−P(A)
The sum of the probabilities of an event and its complement is always equal to 1:
P(A)+P(𝐴̅)=1
CLASSICAL (OR) MATHEMATICAL (OR) LAPLACE DEFINITION OF
PROBABILITY
Let S be a sample space having N finite points which satisfies mutually exclusive, exhaustive
and equally likely events out of N finite points ‘n’ points are favorable to event E, then the
probability of an event E is denoted by P(E) and it is defined as
Number of favorable outcomes for E 𝑛
P(E)= =
Total number of possible outcomes in S 𝑁
STATISTICAL (OR) RELATIVE FREQUENCY DEFINITION OF PROBABILITY
Let S be sample space having infinite points then we can’t apply classical definition of
probability, then the appropriate definition is statistical definition of probability.
The definition says out of a large number of trials only n trial are conducted under essential
homogenous and identical conditions out of ‘n’ trials only ‘k’ number of outcomes are favorable
then the probability of an event E is denoted by P(E) and it is defined as
𝑘
P(E) = lim
𝑛→∞ 𝑛
AXIOMATIC DEFINITION OF PROBABILITY: A set function P(A) is said to be
probability if it satisfies the following properties
Axiom 1: P(A) ≥ 0
Axiom 2: P(S) =1
Axiom 3: If A1, A2, A3…… An are ‘n’ mutually exclusive events then
P(A1U A2U A3 U…… UAn) = P(A1) +P( A2)+ P(A3)+…… P(An)