Lecture on

Basic Concept of Probability

Dr Mohammed Taj Uddin
M.Sc .(SUST), M.S. (Canada), PhD (SUST)
Professor of Statistics, SUST

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 Outline of lecture
 In this lecture, we will discuss about:
 Random experiment
 Outcomes
 Sample space
 Event
 Definition of probability
 How to compute probability of an event?

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  Experiment: An experiment is an act that can be performed
under certain conditions.
 Example: i) Tossing of a coin is an experiment

 Random experiment: Random experiment is an experiment

whose result would not be predicted certainly but the list of
possible outcomes is known.
 Example: 1.) Tossing a fair coin is a random experiment
 Example 2.) Rolling a die are random experiments, since its
results could not be predicted in any trial.

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  Outcome: The results of an experiment is known as
outcomes.

 Trail: if an experiment can be repeated under essentially the

same conditions giving several outcomes, then the
experiment is called a trial.
 Example:Tossing of a coin is a trial

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  Sample space: The set of all outcomes of an experiment is

known as sample space. It is usually denoted by S.

 For example, throwing of a dice is an experiment and the set of
outcomes i.e. S= (1,2,3,4,5,6} is a sample space.

 Events: An event is a subset of sample space and is denoted by

capital letters E (say).

 In other words, the possible outcomes of an experiment or trial
are known as event or cases.

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  Exhaustive Events (cases): The total number of possible
outcomes of any trial is called exhaustive event or cases.
 For example, in throwing of a coin is an experiment and
exhaustive number of cases is 2.

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  Equally likely Events (cases): Events are said to be equally
likely when one does not occur more than others.
 Example: In tossing of coin, the events head and tail are equally
likely.

 Favourable Events (outcomes): The number of outcomes

which entail the happening of the event in a trial is called the
favourable outcomes (events).
 For example, the number of favourable cases for getting even
number in tossing a dice is 3.

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  Mutually exclusive events (cases): Two events are said
to be mutually exclusive when both cannot happen
simultaneously in a single trial.
 For example, if a single coin is tossed either head can be up
or tail can be up, both cannot be up at the same time.
 Similarly, a person may be either alive or dead at a certain
time, but he cannot be both alive as well as dead at the same
time.

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  In other words, the happening of one prevents the happening
of the other and vice-versa.
 In other words, if the intersection of two events is empty set,
then the events are said to be mutually exclusive.

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  Sure event: An event is called sure event if the happening of that event
is certain.
 In other words, an event is known as sure event if the value of
probability of that event is unity.
 i.e. P(E) = 1.

 Impossible event: An event is called impossible event if the happening

of that event is impossible

 In other words, an event is known as impossible event if the value of
probability of that event is zero.
 i.e, P(E) = 0.

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 Definition of probability
 There are mainly four definitions of probability, namely
 i) Mathematical or classical or a priori probability and
 ii) Statistical or empirical or frequency or a posteriori
probability
 iii) Axiomatic probability
 iv) Personalistic probability
 The first two definitions is widely used in practice

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 Classical definition of probability:
If a trial results in ‘n’ exhaustive, mutually exclusive and
equally likely outcomes and ‘m’ of them are favourable to the
happening of an event E, then the probability P of the
happening of E is given by

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 Theorem: Show that the value of probability of any event lies
between 0 to 1
Proof: let n be the total number of mutually exclusive, equally likely and exhaustive
outcomes of any experiment in which m is favourable to an event A, then the probability of
an event is P(A) = m/n. It is evident that the value of m is from 0 to n
i.e. 0<m<n
0 m n
  or, 0  P( A)  1
n n n

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 Limitations or drawbacks of classical definition of
probability:

 we cannot define this type of probability if:

 1. The outcomes are not equally likely and
 2. The number of outcomes are infinite

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Example 1: A bag contains 4 white balls and 6 black balls. If one ball is drawn at random
from the bag, what is the probability that it will be i) black, ii) white, iii) white or black and
iv) red
solution: Let A be the event that the ball is black, then the number of outcomes favourable to
A is 6 i.e. m = 6 and n = total number of outcomes =4+6 =10
Thus, the probability of A is
m 6
P( A) = = = 0.6
n 10

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  Example 3: Suppose in an exam 80 students have appeared.
It is observed that 10 student got A+, 30 students got B+, 20
got C+ and rest of the student got D grade. A student is
chosen at random. What is the probability that the selected
student comes from i) A+ grade, ii.) B+ grade and iii) D
grade or C+ grade

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 Solution
 i) Suppose A be the event that student is chosen from A+ grade.

The favourable number of outcomes to A is m and hence m = 10.

n = 80.
 Thus, the probability of A is P(A) = m/n =10/80.
 ii) P(B)=30/80
 iii) Let E be the event that the selected student comes from either

C+ or D grade. So the favourable no. of outcomes is

m=20+20=40
 Thus, P(E)=m/n=40/80

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  Example-4: A committee of 4 people is to be appointed
from 3 officers of production department, 4 officers of the
purchase department, 2 officers of sales department and 1
chartered account. Find the probability of forming the
committee in the following manner:
 i) there must be one from each category
 ii) the chattered accountant must be in the committee

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 Solution
 Here, 3+4+2+1=10 persons in the dept.
 A committee can be formed in 10c4 ways. Thus the exhaustive no.
of cases = 10c4=210
 i) favourable no. cases for the committee of consisting 4 members,

one from each category is m = 4c1.3c1.2c1.1c1=24

 Thus, the required probability is m/n=24/210=0.11

 ii) favourable # of cases that the committee consist of a chartered

accountant as a member and 3 others are m = 1c1.9c3=84
 Hence, the required probability is m/n = 84/210= 0.40

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 Thank You All

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