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Complementary Events
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Mathematics
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In this explainer, we will learn how to find the probability of

Lesson Presentation
complementary events.
Lesson Video
In the context of probability, we recall that an event is a set of outcomes.
For example, if we think about the days of the week, then every day in
Lesson Explainer
the calendar is 1 of 7 days of the week. In many countries, the days
Saturday and Sunday are classified as the weekend, and an event might Lesson Playlist
be “born on the weekend.” There are two possible outcomes in this set:
{Saturday, Sunday}. Lesson Worksheet

If we assume that births are equally likely to occur on any given day of
the week, the probability that a person chosen at random was born on
the weekend is the number of days in the weekend divided by the
total
2
𝑃 (born on the weekend) = .
number of days in the week: 7

We might then ask, what is the probability of not being born on the
weekend? We can see in the above diagram that the days Monday–Friday
5
𝑃 (not born on the weekend) = .
are the weekdays, and so 7
We call this event the complement of the event “born on the weekend”
since it is equivalent to the event not occurring. The complement of an
event and the event itself cannot happen at the same time. In our
example, we know that it cannot be both a weekday and the weekend at
the same time. We recall that this means that the events “weekday” and
“weekend” are mutually exclusive: there is no overlap between them. This
is true in general, an event and its complement are always mutually
exclusive.

We can define the concept of a complementary event more formally as

follows.

Definition: Complementary Event

The complement of an event 𝐴 (written 𝐴 ) is equivalent to the

event 𝐴 not occurring.

Let’s now discuss the probability of complementary events. We can note

that the union of an event and its complement is the entire sample
space.
This is because the complement of an event is equivalent to the event not
occurring, so saying 𝐴 occurs or does not occur must be the entire sample
space: 𝐴 ∪ 𝐴 = 𝑆.

We can combine this result, the fact that 𝐴 and 𝐴 are

mutually exclusive, and the addition rule for probability to prove a useful
result.

First, 𝑃 (𝑆) = 𝑃 (𝐴 ∪ 𝐴 ) .


We know that 𝑃 (𝑆) = 1 , and we can rewrite the right-hand side of the
equation by using the addition rule of probability to get
1 = 𝑃 (𝐴) + 𝑃 (𝐴 ) − 𝑃 (𝐴 ∩ 𝐴 ) .

Since 𝐴 and 𝐴 are mutually exclusive, we have 𝐴 ∩ 𝐴 = ∅ and

𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐴 ) = 0 , so 1 = 𝑃 (𝐴) + 𝑃 (𝐴 ) .
 

We can rearrange this equation in the following two ways:

𝑃 (𝐴) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴 ) , 

𝑃 (𝐴 ) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) .

These allow us to use the probability of an event to determine the

probability of its complement or vice versa.

We have shown the following result.

Property: Probability of Complementary Events

If 𝐴 and 𝐴 are complementary events, then
𝑃 (𝐴) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) ,
 𝑃 (𝐴) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) ,
𝑃(𝐴 ∪ 𝐴) = 1 ,
𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐴) = 0 .

Let’s now see an example of how to use these formulas to determine the
probability of a complement.

Example 1: Determining the Probability of a

Complement of a Given Event
13
If the probability of an event occurring is36 , what is the
probability that it does not occur?

Answer

We first recall that the event not occurring is called its complement and that the probability of an event added to the
complement is 1. In particular, we have 𝑃 (𝐴 ) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) .

𝑃 (𝐴) = 1 − 13
36
= 23.
In this case, we have 36

In our next example, we will apply this formula to a word problem

involving complementary events.

Example 2: Finding the Probability of a

Complementary Event in a Given Context
If the probability that a student passes in mathematics is 0.7, what is the probability that the student fails?

Answer

We note that the event of not passing is equivalent to saying that the
 student fails. In other words, the events “pass” and “fail” are
complementary. We recall that we can find the probability of a

complementary event by subtracting the probability of the event

𝑃 (fail) = 1 − 𝑃 (pass)

= 1 − 0.7

occurring from 1; hence, = 0.3.

In our next example, we will use the formulas involving probability of

complementary events and the definition of a probability to determine the
number of nonred balls in a bag given the probability of picking out a red
ball and the total number of balls in the bag.

Example 3: Solving a Word Problem Using

Complementary Events
A box contains 56 balls. The probability of selecting at random a red

5
ball is. How many balls in the box are not red?
7

Answer
We can start by noting that the color of the ball will not affect the chance of selecting the ball from the bag and that t
Since the chance of choosing any ball from the bag is the same, we

𝑃 (nonred) = number of nonred balls

total number of balls

= number of nonred balls.

have 56
Multiplying the equation through by 56 gives
number of nonred balls = 56 × 𝑃 (nonred) .
Therefore, we can determine the number of nonred balls in the bag
 by finding the probability of choosing a nonred ball from the bag.

Since the events are complementary, we have

𝑃 (nonred) = 1 − 𝑃 (red)

=1− 5
7
= 2.
7
Substituting this value into the equation gives
number of nonred balls = 56 × 2
7

= 16.
We can check this answer by noting that
number of red balls = total number of balls − number of nonred balls

= 56 − 16

= 40.

𝑃 (red) = number of red balls

total number of balls
= 40
56
= 5.
Then, 7
Since this agrees with the given information, we have confirmed
there are 16 nonred balls in the bag.

In our next example, we will use a frequency table to show two different
methods for calculating the probability of a complementary event.
Example 4: Using a Frequency Table to Find the
Probability of a Complementary Event

The table represents the data collected from 200 conference

attendees of different nationalities.

Only Speak Only Speak Only Speak Total

Arabic English French Sum

Man 45 35 45 125

Woman 40 30 5 75

Sum 85 65 50 200

Find the probability that a randomly selected participant does not

speak English.

Answer
We first note that each person in attendance only speaks one
language. There are two ways to find the probability that a
participant chosen at random does not speak English.

The first method for finding the probability that a participant does
not speak English is to note that, in this case, speaking English and
not speaking English are complementary events.

Therefore, 𝑃 (not speak English) = 1 − 𝑃 (speak English) .

Then, the probability of choosing an English speaker is the number

of English speakers divided by the total number of people. We can
see both of these totals in the table.
Hence, there are 65 English speakers and 200 people in the group,
so the probability that a participant chosen at random does not

speak English is
𝑃 (not speak English) = 1 − 𝑃 (speak English)
65
=1−
200
135
= 200

= 0.675.
The second method is to work out the total number of participants
who do not speak English and then divide this by the total number
of attendees. We can find this information from the table.

The number of participants who do not speak English is

85 + 50 = 135 . The total number of participants is 200. Hence,
number of non-English speakers
𝑃 (not speak English) = number of people in the group
 = 135
200

= 0.675.

Before we continue with more examples, it is worth noting that the

properties of complementary events allow us to determine
complementary events from Venn diagrams. We know that
complementary events are mutually exclusive (so they have no overlap),
and we know that together they make up the entire sample space.

In our final two examples, we will use this fact about complementary
events in Venn diagrams to solve problems involving complementary
events.

Example 5: Finding the Probability of a Complementary Event Using a Venn Diagram

The days in a certain month are classified as rainy days, hot days, both rainy and hot days, or neither rainy nor hot days
to calculate the probability that a day is not rainy.
Answer

There are two ways we can calculate this probability.

In the first method, we note that

𝑃 (not rainy) = number of not rainy days

.
total number of days in the month

We can find the number of days in the month by adding all of the
data to get
total number of days in the month = 9 + 4 + 2 + 15

= 30.
For a day to be not rainy, it cannot be in the event 𝑅 . This is the

complementary event 𝑅 and is given by the following
Venn diagram.

We can see that there are 15 days that were hot but not rainy, and
9 days that were neither hot nor rainy,
so
number of nonrainy days = 15 + 9

= 24.
24
𝑃 (not rainy) =
30
4
= .
 Hence,

In the second method, we note that rainy and nonrainy days are complementary events, so 𝑃 (not rainy) = 1
We can determine the number of rainy days from the Venn diagram.

There are 4 days that were rainy but not hot and 2 days that were
rainy and hot, so number of rainy days = 4 + 2 = 6.
We note as before that there are 30 days in the month, so
𝑃 (not rainy) = 1 − 𝑃 (rainy)

= 1 −number of rainy days

total number of days in the month

=1− 6
30
= 4.
5

In our final example, we will use a given Venn diagram to determine the
probability of a complementary event.

Example 6: Finding the Probability of a Complementary Event Using a Venn Diagram

In a music class, students learn to play the piano, the guitar, and the drums. Some students play 2 instruments, som
instruments, and some play none of the instruments. Let 𝑃 denote
those who play the piano, 𝐺 those who play the guitar, and 𝐷
those who play the drums.

Using the given diagram, calculate the probability that a student

does not play the piano.

Answer

There are two methods we can use to determine the probability that
a student does not play the piano.

In the first method, we note that

number of students who do not play the piano
𝑃 (not play the piano) = total number of students .

Adding all of the data from the Venn diagram, we get

total number of students = 2 + 3 + 2 + 1 + 5 + 2 + 2 + 14

= 31.
We can determine the number of students who do not play the
piano from the Venn diagram. The event of choosing a student who
does not play the piano is the complement of 𝑃 , so we can draw this
on our Venn diagram as everything not in 𝑃 .
We can then add all of the data not in 𝑃 to get
number of students who do not play the piano = 2 + 1 + 5 + 14

= 22.
22
𝑃 (not play the piano) = .
Hence, 31
In the second method, we note that not playing the piano is a
complementary event of 𝑃, so
𝑃 (not play the piano) = 1 − 𝑃 (piano) .
We note that
number of students who play the piano
𝑃 (piano) = total number of students .
We can determine the number of students who play the piano by
adding all of the data in 𝑃 from the Venn diagram.
 This gives
number of students who play the piano = 3 + 2 + 2 + 2

= 9.
𝑃 (not play the piano) = 1 − 9
31
= 22.
Hence, 31

Let’s finish by recapping some of the important points from this explainer.

Key Points
The complement of an event 𝐴 (written 𝐴 ) is equivalent to the event 𝐴 not occurring.
Any event is mutually exclusive with its complement (i.e.,
𝐴 ∩ 𝐴 = ∅ ).
In a sample space 𝑆 , since 𝐴 is equivalent to the event 𝐴
 not occurring, and 𝐴 is equivalent to 𝐴 occurring, one of
these events must occur, so 𝐴 ∪ 𝐴 = 𝑆 and
𝑃 (𝐴 ∪ 𝐴) = 1 .
Applying the addition rule for probability to two
complementary events tells us

𝑃 (𝐴 ∪ 𝐴) = 𝑃 (𝐴) + 𝑃 (𝐴) − 𝑃 (𝐴 ∩ 𝐴) = 𝑃 (𝐴) + 𝑃 (𝐴) .

Hence, 𝑃 (𝐴) + 𝑃 (𝐴) = 1.
The probability of the complement, 𝐴 , of event 𝐴 , or “not
𝐴 , ” is given by 𝑃 (𝐴 ) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) . This can be rewritten as 𝑃 (𝐴) = 1 − 𝑃 (𝐴) .
In a Venn diagram, 𝐴 and 𝐴 have no overlap and combine to make the entire sample space.

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