Lecture – 01 and 02

Basics of Probability

Course Leader:
R Arun

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 Lecture Objectives
At the end of this session, the students would be able to

• Explain the probability theory

• Describe the elements in probability theory

• Define the various terminologies of probability theory

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 Probability Theory
• Branch of mathematics, concerned with the analysis of
random phenomena

• It is a mathematical foundation for Statistics

• Essential for many human activities that involve quantitative

analysis of large sets of data

• Simple events like tossing a coin and rolling a dice involve

probability theory

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 Probability Theory
Classical definition of Probability:
If there are ‘n’ mutually exclusive and equally likely
events of a random experiment, out of which, ‘s’ events are
favorable for a particular event E, the probability of E is
defined as

This probability is also known as the probability of success of E

Generally, Probability of success is usually denoted by ‘p’ and
Probability of failure is denoted by ‘q’
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 Probability Theory
Similarly,
ns s
P( E )   1   1  P( E )
n n

Where E stands for the set of unfavorable events

c I
It is also denoted as E or E

Therefore, P ( E )  P ( E )  1

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 Probability Theory

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 History of Probability Theory
• Believed to have existed for millennia

• Gained prominence in the year 1654, when Antoine

Gombaud, Chevalier de Mere raised a question on the fair
division of a game’s payoff to the players, in the event of a
premature finish to the game

• Before that Gerolamo Cardano had written a book called

‘Games of Chance’ in 1564, published in 1663, which
contained the first systematic treatment of probability theory

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 History of Probability Theory
• The book depicted the game of throwing dice to understand
the basic concepts of probability

• It introduced the concept of defining odds as the ratio of

favorable to unfavorable outcomes

• Taking a cue from Gombaud’s questioning, two famous

mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de Fermat laid the
foundation for the modern theory of probability

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 Elements of Probability theory
• Random/ Stochastic Variables:
Variables whose value is subjected to variations due to chance or
randomness

• Random/ Stochastic Process:

Collection of random variables representing the evolution of
some system of random values over time

• Events:
Mathematical abstractions of measured quantities that may
either be single occurrences or evolve over time in a random fashion
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 Basic terminology of Probability theory
• Experiment: A repeatable procedure with well defined
possible outcomes

• Sample Space: A set of all possible outcomes, denoted by ‘S’

• Elementary event: An event with only one element, also

known as ‘Atomic element’

• Expected Value: Sum of the probability of each possible

outcome of the experiment, multiplied by its payoff

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 Basic terminology of Probability theory

• Joint probability: The probability of two events occurring

together, represented as P(A,B)

• Kurtosis: A measure of the peak of the probability

distribution of a real valued random variable

• Marginal probability: The probability of an event, ignoring

information about other events

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 Basic terminology of Probability theory
• Mutual independence: A collection of events is said to be
mutually independent if for any subset of the collection, the
joint probability of all events occurring is equal to the
product of the joint probabilities of the individual events

• Prior probability: Prior beliefs or other information that is

available before new data or observations are taken into
account

• Probability space: A sample space over which a probability

measure has been defined

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 Basic terminology of Probability theory
• Probability distribution: A function that gives the probability
of all elements in a given space

• Probability density: Describes the probability in a continuous

probability distribution

• Random variable: A measurable function on a probability

space, often real valued

• Skewness: Measure of the asymmetry of the probability

distribution of a real valued random variable
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 Probability Theory
Limitations of the classical definition of probability
• In this definition elementary events must be equally likely,
but this may not be true in all cases

• This definition assumes that the sample space is finite, But

there are many instances where the sample space might be
infinite

To overcome these limitations, a large number of trials for a

random experiment has to be considered

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 Probability Theory

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 Summary
• Probability is a branch of mathematics used to analyze
random phenomena

• It calculates the likelihood of any given event to occur or not

• It forms as a foundation for Basic Statistics

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