PROBABILITY

THEORY
 LEARNING
OBJECTIVES
01 DEFINE AND EXPLAIN THE CONCEPT & APPLICATION OF PROBABILITIES;

02 EXECUTE THE DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO DETERMINING PROBABILITY;

03 CALCULATE PROBABILITIES SUING DIFFERENT RULES AS APPROPRIATE;

04 STATE THE RULES OF PROBABILITY USING EXAMPLES;

05 DISCUSS THE IMPORATANCE OF PROBABILITY

MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

• Physician says that a patient has a 50 - 50 chance of surviving

a certain operation.

• A weather forecaster reported that there is a 90% chance of

raining.

• A typical 6/49 lottery has a 1 in 13,983,816 chance of winning.

 BASIC
PROBABILITY
CONCEPTS
EXPERIMENT

Any procedure that can be

repeated under basically the
same conditions and which
yields well-defi ned outcomes.
SAMPLE SPACE

It is the set of all possible

outcomes of an experiment.

SAMPLE POINT

An element of the sample

space. The total number of
sample points in a sample
space is denoted by n(S).
Note:

A sample space is always denoted by capital letter S.

EVENT

A subset of the sample space

which is a collection of one or
more sample points of the sample
space.

It is denoted by any capital letter

except S.
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

Experiment: Tossing 2 coins

Sample Space: S = {HH, TH, HT, TT}

From this experiment, we can define several events such

as:
A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}
B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}
C = {getting two tails} = {TT}
D ={getting three heads} = { }
THINKING CHALENGE

Write down the sample space of the following experiments:

EXPERIMENT SAMPLE SPACE

Toss a coin

Toss two coins

Observe gender/sex

Play a football game

THINKING CHALENGE

Write down the sample space of the following experiments:

EXPERIMENT SAMPLE SPACE

Toss a coin S = { Head, Tail}

Toss two coins S = {HH, HT, TH, TT}

Observe gender/sex S = {male, female}

Play a football game S={win, lose, tie}

SIMPLE EVENT

An event which has only one

sample point.

COMPOUND EVENT

An event which has two or more

sample points.
SURE/CERTAIN EVENT

An event which always happens.

IMPOSSIBLE EVENT

An event which will never

happen.
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

From the following events, identify whether it is a

simple,
compound, impossible or sure event.

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

Compound event
B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}
Compound event
C = {getting two tails} = {TT}
Simple event
D ={getting three heads} = { }
Impossible event
THINKING CHALENGE
Consider a random experiment of rolling a dice/die.
Let define the following events:

A = {getting an odd number}

B = {getting an even number}
C = {a number less than 1}
D = {a number greater than 6}
E = {a number greater than 0}

Identify which events are a) simple, b) compound, c) certain, and

d) impossible
PROBABILITY
PROBABILITY
Pro b a b i l i t y i s t h e s t u d y o f c h a n c e .

A number between 0 and 1 that

i n d i c a t e s t h e re l a t i v e c h a n c e o r
l i ke l i h o o d t h a t a n e v e n t w i l l h a p p e n .

I t i s a m e a s u re o f t h e l i ke l i h o o d o f a
random phenomenon or chance
b e h a v i o u r.

It does not deal with guarantees, but

w i t h t h e l i ke l i h o o d o f a n o c c u rre n c e o f
an event.

N o t a t i o n : T h e p ro b a b i l i t y o f a n e v e n t E
i s w r i t t e n a s P ( E ) a n d p ro n o u n c e d “P o f
PROPERTIES OF PROBABILITY

1. The probability of an event is

between 0 and 1, inclusive.

2. A probability of zero implies

that the event will not occur.

3. A probability of 1 implies that

the event will occur.
 CONCEPTUAL
APPROACHES TO
PROBABILITY
SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY

 A number between 0 and 1 that reflects a person’s degree of

belief that an event will occur.

Example:

• You think you have a 50/50 chance of passing this score

because almost your scores in quizzes and exams are in passing
score level.

• You are not going to attend your cousin’s birthday because you
think there’s a high chance of raining today.
EMPIRICAL PROBABILITY (RELATIVE FREQUENCY)

 This is also called experimental probability. Relative frequency

of an event occurring in an infinitely large number of trials.

 The probability of a given outcome is the number of times that

outcome occurs divided by the total number of repetitions.

Example:
• A cup is flipped 100 times. It lands on its side 84 times, on its
bottom 6 times, and on its top 10 times. What is the probability
that it lands on top?

The probability obtained is experimental or empirical as

the cup was actually flipped.
 COMPUTING POBABILITY USING THE
EMPIRICAL METHOD

The probability of an event E is approximately the

number of times event E is observed divided by the
number of repetitions of the experiment.

P(E) =
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

The following data represent the number of homes with

various types of home heating fuels based on a survey of
1,000 homes.

(a) Approximate the probability that a randomly selected

home uses electricity as its home heating fuel.

(b) Would it be unusual to select a home that uses coal or

coke as its home heating fuel?
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE
HOUSE HEATING FUEL FREQUENCY
Utility gas 504
Bottled, tank, or LP gas 64
Electricity 307
Fuel oil, kerosene, etc 94
Coal or coke 2
Wood 17
Solar Energy 1
Other Fuel 4
No fuel used 7
CLASSICAL/THEORETICAL PROBABILITY

 The classical method of computing probabilities requires

equally likely outcomes.

 An experiment is said to have equally likely outcomes when

each simple event has the same probability of occurring.
 COMPUTING POBABILITY USING THE
CLASICAL METHOD

If an experiment has n equally likely simple events

and if the number of ways that an event E can occur
is
m, then the probability of E, P(E), is

P(E)
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

Suppose a “fun size” bag of M&Ms contains 9 brown

candies, 6 yellow candies, 7 red candies, 4 orange
candies, 2
blue candies, and 2 green candies. Suppose that a candy
is
randomly selected

(a) What is the probability that it is brown?

(b) What is the probability that it is blue?
(c) Comment on the likelihood of the candy being brown
THINKING CHALENGE
Answer the following questions, then identify the
way
the probability is assigned.
1. There are 2,598,960 possible five-card hand in poker. If there
are 36 possible ways for a straight flush to occur, what is the
probability of being dealt a straight flush?

2. A school has 820 male students and 835 female students. If a

student is selected at random, what is the probability that the
student would be a female?
BASIC OPERATIONS
ON EVENTS
UNION

 Consists of all outcomes in the sample space S that are

contained either in event A or in event B or both (denoted A ∪
B or “A or B”).

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}

A ∪ B = {HH, TH, HT, TT}

INTERSECTION

 It is the event consisting of all outcomes in the sample space

S that are contained in both event A and event B. It is denoted
by A ∩ B or “A and B”)

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}

A ∩ B = {HT}
Important note:

Most of the times in word problem, union and

intersection are not directly specified. Instead, the words
“or” and “and” are used for union and intersection,
respectively.
COMPLEMENT

 The complement of an event A is denoted by A′ and consists

of everything in the sample space S except event A.

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}
Thus,
A’= {TT}
B’ = {HH, TH}
MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

Two events are said to be

mutually exclusive if they cannot
happen at the same time in a
single trial.

That is, the intersection of the

events under consideration is
null set or empty set.
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

Consider a random experiment of tossing two coins. Let

events A and B are defined as follows:

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}

Are A and B mutually exclusive events?

Answer: No, because the intersection between

events A and B is HT.
MUTUALLY EXHAUSTIVE EVENTS

When a sample space is

distributed down onto some
mutually exclusive events such
that their union forms
the sample space itself.
 MOTIVATIONAL EXAMPLE

Consider a random experiment of tossing two coins. Let

events A and B are defined as follows:

A = {getting a head in the first coin} = {HH, TH, HT}

B = {getting a tail in the second coin} = {HT, TT}

Are A and B mutually exhaustive events?

Answer: Yes, because the union between events A

and B is the sample space itself.
THINKING CHALENGE
Consider a random experiment of rolling a dice/die.
Let define the following events:
A = {getting an odd number}
B = {getting an even number}
C = {a number less than 1}
D = {a number greater than 6}
E = {a number greater than 0}

1) Find A ∪ D, A ∩ E and E’.

2) Are events A and B mutually exclusive? mutually exhaustive?
3) Are events D and E mutually exclusive? mutually exhaustive?
THINKING CHALENGE

EVENT
EVENT C D TOTAL

A 4 2 6
B 1 3 4
TOTAL 5 5 10
Find:
1. P(A)
2. P(D)
3. P(C and D)
4. P(A or D)
5. P(B and D)
THANK
YOU