Chapter 4 Probability
INTRODUCTION
The probability of an event is viewed as a numerical measure of the chance that the
event will occur. The idea is naturally relevant to situations where the outcome of
an experiment or observation exhibits variation. Although we have already used the
terms “experiment” and “event,” a more specific explanation is now in order. In the
present context, the term experiment is not limited to the studies conducted in a
laboratory. Rather, it is used in a broad sense to include any operation of data
collection or observation where the outcomes are subject to variation. Rolling a die,
drawing a card from a shuffled deck, sampling a number of customers for an opinion
survey, and quality inspection of items from a production line are just a few
examples.
In this chapter we want to discuss the basic concepts of probability that covering
the random experiments, the space of elementary events (sample space),
probability axioms, and rules of probabilities. To understand the rules of
probabilities we need to know about Venn’s diagrams to illustrate the relationship
between events A, B, C, ...... and S for a random experiment. Moreover, we will learn
the rule for counting to compute the probability of any event in any sample space.
A random experiment is the process by which an observation (or measurement)
is obtained, but say for sure without knowing the outcome in advance.
Before attempting to assign probabilities, it is essential to consider all the
eventualities of the experiment. Pertinent to their description, we introduce the
following terminologies and explain them through examples
A sample space is the set of all elementary events (possible outcomes) of a
random experiment, denotes by S or Ω.
An element is each outcome in the sample space, and it represents a simple event.
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Chapter 4 Probability
Examples of random experiments, elementary events (outcomes), and their sample
space are list in the following table.
Experiment Outcomes Sample space
Toss one fair coin Head, Tail S = { H, T }
Roll a fair die once 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 S = { 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }
Toss two fair coins HH, HT, TH, TT S = { HH, HT, TH, TT }
Answer a True/ False question True, False S = { True, False }
One conclusion from the above table is that, the space of elementary events involves
all outcomes of a random experiment. An interesting thing in statistics is that, the
data could be represented using graphical diagrams to understand the statistical
concepts, in a random experiment two common diagrams are used in order to draw
the space of elementary events, namely; Venn diagram and the tree diagram. A Venn’s
diagram uses a geometric shape like a rectangle or a circle that contains all the
possible outcomes for a random experiment. While in a tree diagram method
branches are used to represent the outcomes of a random experiment.
Find the space of elementary events and draw a tree diagram for tossing two
different coins at once.
Solution: This experiment has four possible outcomes (four elementary events)
H HH
H
T HT
H TH
T
T TT
The sample space is given by 𝑆 = {𝐻𝐻, 𝐻𝑇, 𝑇𝐻, 𝑇𝑇}
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Chapter 4 Probability
Find the space of elementary events and draw a tree diagram for rolling one die.
Solution: This experiment has six possible outcomes (6 elementary events)
1
2
the space of elementary events is 3
4
given by 𝑆 = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
5
6
Find the space of elementary events for tossing one coin and rolling a die together
one time.
Solution: This experiment has twelve possible outcomes as follows: H,1
H,2
H,3
H H,4
H,5
H,6
The space of elementary events is
T,1
(𝐻, 1), (𝐻, 2), (𝐻, 3), (𝐻, 4), (𝐻, 5), (𝐻, 6) T
T,2
𝑆={ } T,3
(𝑇, 1), (𝑇, 2), (𝑇, 3), (𝑇, 4), (𝑇, 5), (𝑇, 6) T,4
T,5
T,6
Find the space of elementary events for tossing a coin three times.
Solution: This experiment has eight possible outcomes, and we can obtain these
outcomes as follows: H HHH
H T HHT
H H
T HTH
The space of elementary events T
H HTT
H THH
𝐻𝐻𝐻, 𝐻𝐻𝑇, 𝐻𝑇𝐻, 𝑇𝐻𝐻, T THT
𝑆={ } T H
𝐻𝑇𝑇, 𝑇𝐻𝑇, 𝑇𝑇𝐻, 𝑇𝑇𝑇 T TTH
T
TTT
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Chapter 4 Probability
Previous examples discuss the representation of outcomes using the Tree diagrams,
in some cases a subgroup of outcomes may gathered in a subset of the space of
elementary events and the outcomes inside this subset share a common
characteristic, this subset is called an event, more details about events are in the
next subsection.
Concept of Event
Consider an experiment of rolling a die once, the sample space would be the numbers
1,2,3,4, 5 and 6, assume that A is an event that consists of odd numbers outcomes in
the performed experiment, then A contains the numbers 1, 3 and 5, Moreover, if B is
an event that consists of negative numbers outcomes, then B is an empty event, since
it’s impossible to get such outcome in our experiment, when an event consists of no
outcomes and represents an empty subset of the sample space, in other words, it’s
impossible to get outcomes under certain conditions, such event is named by “phi” in
the references and denoted by ∅ .
An event is a subset of the sample space of a random experiment and denoted by
capital letter (𝐴, 𝐵,. . . ).
A simple event is an event which consists of only a single elementary event of the
space of elementary events (single outcome of the random experiment).
One encounters in many cases events are result of algebraic (or logic) operations
between events. These events are called compound events.
A compound event is an event which generated by algebraic operations between
events from the sample space.
A die tossed two times, find the following events.
a. The elementary events.
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Chapter 4 Probability
b. The sum of any two outcomes is 3.
c. The sum any two outcomes are less than 4.
d. The sum any two outcomes are more than 10.
Solution:
This experiment has thirty-six possible outcomes (36 elementary events)
a . The elementary events:
𝐸1 = {1,1}, 𝐸2 = {1,2}, 𝐸3 = {1,3}, 𝐸4 = {1,4}, 𝐸5 = {1,5}, 𝐸6 = {1,6}
𝐸7 = {2,1}, 𝐸8 = {2,2}, 𝐸9 = {2,3}, 𝐸10 = {2,4}, 𝐸11 = {2,5}, 𝐸12 = {2,6}
𝐸13 = {3,1}, 𝐸14 = {3,2}, 𝐸15 = {3,3}, 𝐸16 = {3,4}, 𝐸17 = {3,5}, 𝐸18 = {3,6}
𝐸19 = {4,1}, 𝐸20 = {4,2}, 𝐸21 = {4,3}, 𝐸22 = {4,4}, 𝐸23 = {4,5}, 𝐸24 = {4,6}
𝐸25 = {5,1}, 𝐸26 = {5,2}, 𝐸27 = {5,3}, 𝐸28 = {5,4}, 𝐸29 = {5,5}, 𝐸30 = {5,6}
𝐸31 = {6,1}, 𝐸32 = {6,2}, 𝐸33 = {6,3}, 𝐸34 = {6,4}, 𝐸35 = {6,5}, 𝐸36 = {6,6}
b. The sum of any two outcomes is 3: 𝐵 = {(1,2), (2,1)}
c. The sum any two outcomes are less than 4: 𝐶 = {(1,1), (1,2), (2,1)}
d. The sum any two outcomes are more than 10: 𝐷 = {(5,6), (6,5), (6,6)}
Note that
- The events in (a), 𝐸1 , 𝐸2 ,. . . , 𝐸36 are elementary events.
- Note that B event can be seen as a composed event consists of simple events.
Because we can write: 𝐵 = {(1,2), (2,1)} = {1,2} ∪ {2,1} = 𝐸2 ∪ 𝐸7
- The C event is a composed event consists of simple events. Because we can
write: 𝐶 = {(1,1), (1,2), (2,1)} = 𝐸1 ∪ 𝐸2 ∪ 𝐸7
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Chapter 4 Probability
Algebra Operations
1- Complementary Event
The complementary event, denoted as 𝐴𝑐 or 𝐴̅, is the event that consists of all
outcomes in the sample space that are not in event A: 𝐴𝑐 = {ω ∈ S ∶ ω ∉ A}.
We can show the complementary event using venn diagram as:
2- The Union
The union of two events, denoted as A ∪ B, is the event that consists of outcomes
that are in either event A or event B, or both: A ∪ B = {ω ∈ S : ω ∈ A or ω ∈ B}
We can show the union of two events using venn diagram as:
3- The intersection
The intersection of two events, denoted as A ∩ B, is the event that contains
elements that are in both: A ∩ B = {ω ∈ S : ω ∈ A and ω ∈ B}
We can show the union of two events using venn diagram as:
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Chapter 4 Probability
3- The Difference between Two Events
The difference between two events, denoted by 𝐴 − 𝐵 𝑜𝑟 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 𝑐 , is the event that
contains elements that are in 𝐴 but not in 𝐵: 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 𝑐 = {ω ∈ S : ω ∈ A and ω ∉ B}
We can show the union of two events using venn diagram as:
Mutually Exclusive or Disjoint Events are events that cannot occur simultaneously
In other words, if one of the events happens, the other(s) cannot.
a) If we have 𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 = ∅ for two events A and B from S. Then we can say A and B
are mutually exclusive or Disjoint Events.
b) Let 𝐴1 , 𝐴2 , . . . . . , 𝐴𝑛 be events from S. Now if we have 𝐴𝑖 ∩ 𝐴𝑗 = ∅ for 𝑖 ≠ 𝑗 and
𝑖, 𝑗 = 1, 2, . . . . . , 𝑛, then one say 𝐴1 , 𝐴2 , . . . . . , 𝐴𝑛 are pairwise mutually exclusive.
Roll a die once and define the following events:
a. If A is the event that represents rolling odd numbers.
b. If B is the event that represents rolling even numbers.
c. If C is the event that represents rolling a number greater than 3.
Find the following events and use venn diagram to show these events.
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Chapter 4 Probability
1) 𝐴∪𝐵
2) 𝐴∩𝐵
3) 𝐴∪𝐶
4) 𝐴𝑐 ∩ 𝐶
5) 𝐵 − (𝐵 ∩ 𝐶)
Solution . . .
Counting Rule
1 - Multiplication Rule
When an experiment has a large number of outcomes, it may not be practical to list
them all. In such cases, the counting rule provides a method for determining the total
number of outcomes.
If an experiment consists of 𝑘 steps, each with 𝑛𝑖 outcomes, then the total number of
final outcomes is given by the product of the possible outcomes at each step:
For the experiment of tossing a coin 6 times. Find the total number of outcomes.
Solution:
The total outcomes is calculated as follows: 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 = 26 = 64
2 - Permutations
Permutation is the arrangement of elements where the order of elements matters.
It involves arranging digits, numbers, alphabets, colors, or letters.
Permutations are typically represented as:
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Chapter 4 Probability
Three members need to be randomly chosen from a set of five. Calculate the
number of permutations possible.
Solution:
In this case, n = 5 and r = 3. So, the number of permutations is:
5! 5!
𝑃35 = (5−3)! = = 5 × 4 × 3 = 60
2!
3 - Permutations with Replacement
In a permutation with replacement, it’s possible to select the same unit multiple
times.
The formula for calculating permutations with repetition is:
Two members need to be randomly chosen from a set of six with replacement.
Calculate the number of permutations possible.
Solution:
Note that, n = 6 and r = 2, then, the number of permutations is:
𝑃26 = 62 = 36
4 - Combinations
Combination is the process of selecting elements where the order of selection does
not matter. This involves choosing from digits, numbers, alphabets, colors, or
letters, taking some or all of them at a time.
Combinations are typically represented as:
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Chapter 4 Probability
Note that:
1) 𝑛>𝑟
2) 𝐶𝑛𝑛 = 𝐶0𝑛 = 1
3) 𝐶𝑟𝑛 = 𝐶𝑛−𝑟
𝑛
Four members of a faculty committee need to be randomly chosen from a set of
seven candidates. How many combinations are possible?
Solution:
For selecting 3 members from 5 candidates, we have:
7! 7×6×5
𝐶47 = = = 35
4! (7−4)! 3!
Exercises:
(1) How many different ways can we arrange 5 students in a row for a photo?
(2) How many different ways can you select 5 students from a set of 8 randomly.
(3) In a hospital, there are 8 nurses and 4 doctors. A committee of 3 nurses and 2
doctors is to be chosen. How many different possibilities are there?
(4) How many different ways can an instructor select 3 textbooks from 15.
(5) How many ways can a jury of 5 women and 5 men be selected from 10 women and
15 men.
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