Probability

Probability assignments
Relative frequency theory:
Probability is the long-run proportion of repetitions on which and event occurs.

Equally like outcomes.

Probability has to do with symmetrics and the indistinguishability of outcomes. Outcomes are equally likely probable.

Frequency theory
The probability that event A occurs is p%. Means that repeating the experiment over and over again, the percentage of the the time that A occurs will converge to p.

Tree diagrams
Is an easy way to represent graphically of the combination of possible outcomes.

Discrete Random variables vs Continuous random variables

The difference between discrete and continuous and random variables, is if it is countable or not. i.e. The number of students is a countable variable (discrete), but their height can be measured in meters and fractions or decimals of meters (continuous).

 Using Venn diagrams and the equally likely concept, we can say that the probability of any event is the number of elements in an event A divided by the total number of elements in the sample space S. This is equivalent to saying: P(A) = n(A) / n(P), where n(A) reoresents the number of outcomes in A and n(S) represents the total number of outcomes. Example: 10 balls= 3 blue balls; 7 green balls. P(Blue) = 3/10 = 0.3
A B

Probability rules
Rule 1
Any probability is a number between 0 and 1 0P(A)1

Rule 2
All the possible outcomes together must have a probability of 1. P(S) = 1

 Rule 3
If two events have no outcomes in common, the probability that one or the other occurs is the sum of their individual probabilities. Two events that have no outcomes in common, and hence can never occur together, are called disjoint events or mutually exclusive events. P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B)

 Rule 4
Suppose that the probability that you receive a 7 on your IB exam is 0.2, then the probability of not receiving a 7 is 0.8. The event that contains the outcomes not in A is called the complement of A, and is denoted by A.

P(A) = 1 P(A) or P(A) = 1 P(A)

Operations with events

Intersections
Two events B and C denoted B C by or simply BC, is the event containing all outcomes common to B and C.

6
B C = {7,9}

7 9

1 3 5
S

Union
For two events B and C, denoted by the symbol B U C is the event containing all the outcomes that belong to B or to C or to both.

Rule 5
For any two events A and B, P (A U B) = P(A) + P(B) P(A B) This is due the intersection appears in A and B, so if adding A and B, we are counting the intersection twice. A

Rule 6
Two events A an B are independent if knowing that one them occurs does not change the probability that the other occurs. The multiplication rule for independent events: If two events a and B are independent, then P(A B) = P(A) X P(B)

Conditional probability
Means incorporating new restrictions on the outcome of an experiment: updating probabilities to take unto account new information.

Independence
Two events are indepemdent if and only if either P(A B)= P(A) X P(B), or P(A|B) = P(A). Otherwise, the events are dependent.

Dependence vs conditional probability

To avoid confusion between these to, remember what we said in class. Conditional probability is a restriction that appears while combining events you need yo happen, and dependence is when even you want it or not, they affect each other.

 Good luck! =D