Probability

Anamiya Baby
• Probability is a convenient tool to assign a
numerical value to measure the uncertainty of
an outcome.
Consider the following situations
• A coin is tossed
• A six face die is thrown
• Ten horses run a race
• A student appears for an examination
• A stone is thrown in the air
• Kerosine is poured over a fire
• For example (v) the stone is certain fall down and in
(v1) the kerosine is sure to burn. In other cases ,we
cannot state with certainty the outcome of the action.
• We can enumerate all the possible outcomes of the
action but we cannot state which of them will
materialise.
• For example when a coin is tossed there are two
possible out comes; either it will fall heads or it will
fall tails, but we cannot say which one it will be.
• The aim of probability theory is to provide a
mathematical model to study uncertain
situations.
 Types of probability
1. Subjective probability
2. Classical probability (theoretical probability or
mathematical or Laplace or piriori probability)
3. Empirical probability (experimental probability or
observed probability or posteriori ,relative
frequency)
 Subjective probability

Subjective probability is something we do every single

day.
For eg:We go to doctor and ask ,doctor what is the
chance of make it.8%
Based on past experience or based upon education
It is an estimate that reflects a person’s opinion,
or best guess about whether an outcome will
occur.
Eg :P(you drop this course)
P(NASA successfully land a man on the moon)
 Classical probability
Based on the an chance of an event occurring ( each simple
event must have an equal chance of occurring )
Definition : If a trail results in n mutually exclusive,
equally likely and exhaustive cases and m of them are
favorable (m<n) to the happening of an event A.
P(A)=m/n= no of favorable cases/Total number of cases
(1)
0≤p(A)≤1.
 Empirical probability
Probability that is estimated based on observation or
experiment written as a ratio comparing the number
of times the event occurred to the number of trails.
P(A)= no of times A occurs/Total number of times
procedure was repeated
Difference b/n Classical and empirical
probability
Classical probability Empirical probability
What Should happen- What did happen-past
future
1.Eg:The probability of selecting a spade from a pack
of cards
Ans:13/52
Is this classical or empirical probability ?
Classical

2. Flip a coin 100 times. you get 64 tails

P(T)=64/100
Is this classical or empirical probability ?
empirical probability
 important concepts of probability
1.Random experiment: we can’t predict the
outcome before the experiment is performed
Conditions for random experiment
1.It should be repeatable under uniform conditions
2.It should have several possible outcomes
3.One should not predict the outcome of a particular
trail
Eg :Tossing a coin, rolling a die
Sample space
Set of all possible outcomes of a random
experiment and it is denoted by Ω
Eg: rolling a die
S={1,2,3,4,5,6}
Consider a subset from the sample space
that is the set A, it denotes the even number
from the sample space

A
Trail and event
Trail is an attempt to produce an outcome of a random
experiment. eg.if we toss a coin or throw a die, we are
performing trails.
The outcomes in an experiment are termed as events or
cases. eg.getting a head or tail in tossing a coin is an
event
An individual outcome of a sample space is called a
simple event [cannot break it down into several other
events],
Equally likely events
Events are said to be equally likely when we have no reason to
expect one rather than the other.

eg:in tossing an unbiased coin the two events head and tail
are equally likely because we have no reason to expect head
rather than tail.
The set of all possible outcomes in a trail constitutes the set
of exhaustive cases. In other words the totality of all possible
outcomes.

Mutually exclusive events

Events are said to mutually exclusive if the happening of
any one of them precludes or excludes the happening of all the
others in a trail.
 Eg:in throwing a die all the six faces numbered 1
to 6 are mutually exclusive since if any one of these
faces comes, the possibility of others in the same trail,
is ruled out
Favorable cases
The cases which entail the occurrence of an event
are said to be favorable to the events.eg ,while
throwing a die ,the occurrence of 2,4,6 are the
favorable cases which entail the occurrence of an
even number
.
 Axioms of probability

A & B are events

1. Non negativity: P(A)≥0 is always +ve,it can be -ve
2. Normalization :P(Ω)=1
3. Additivity :If if A and B are mutually exclusive
P( A  B)  
then P( A  B)  P( A)  P( B)
 Properties of probability
1. P(Ā)=1-P(A)
2. P(ɸ)=0
3. If A≤B, then P(A) ≤P(B)
4. 0≤p(A)≤1.
5. P(A υB)=P(A)+P(B)-P(A∩B)
6. P(A/B)=P(A)-P(A∩B)