PROJECT WORK FOR

ADDITIONAL MATHEMATHICS
-2010-
Probability and their
Application in Our Daily Life
Name
Ahmad Izzat Bin Ahamed Mubarek

Class
5 Budiman

Teacher
Mr. David Ch’ng

School
Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Penang Free

Content Page

Part 1
- Introduction
- History of Probability
- Application of Probability
- Importance of Probability
- Theoretical and Empirical Probability

Part 2
- Possible outcomes of a die when tossed once
- Possible outcomes of a die when tossed simultaneously

Part 3
- Possible outcomes of sum of dots on both turned-up
faces when tossed simultaneously

Part 4
- Mean, variance and standard deviation by tossing
two dice simultaneously for 50 times.
- Mean, variance and standard deviation by tossing
two dice simultaneously for 100 times.

Part 5
- Actual mean, variance and standard deviation by
using formulae given.
- Comparison between mean, variance and standard
deviation obtained related to Theoretical and Empirical
Probabilities.
- Proving of the conjecture made by tossing two dice
simultaneously for 200 times.

Further Exploration

Reflection

Part 1

(a) Introduction
 The word Probability derives from probity, a measure of the authority of a
witness in a legal case in Europe, and often correlated with the witness's nobility. In a
sense, this differs much from the modern meaning of probability, which, in contrast, is
used as a measure of the weight of empirical evidence, and is arrived at from
inductive reasoning and statistical inference
Probability is a measure of how likely it is that some event will occur. It is a
branch of Mathematics that occurs together with the analysis of random phenomena.
The central objects of probability theory are random variables, stochastic processes
and events. In an event of tossing a coin or rolling a die for numerous times, the
repetitive rhythm of the sequence of random events will exhibit certain statistical
patterns which can be studied and predicted.

The word probability does not have a consistent direct definition. In fact, there are
two broad categories of probability interpretations, whose adherents possess
different (and sometimes conflicting) views about the fundamental nature of
probability:

1. Frequentists talk about probabilities only when dealing with experiments that
are random and well-defined. The probability of a random event denotes the
relative frequency of occurrence of an experiment's outcome, when repeating
the experiment. Frequentists consider probability to be the relative frequency
"in the long run" of outcomes.

2. Bayesians, however, assign probabilities to any statement whatsoever, even

when no random process is involved. Probability, for a Bayesian, is a way to
represent an individual's degree of belief in a statement, or an objective

degree of rational belief, given the evidenceis and the collection of desired

outcomes is , the probability of the desired outcomes is:

History of Probability

"A gambler's dispute in 1654 led to the creation of a mathematical theory of

probability by two famous French mathematicians, Blaise Pascal and Pierre de
Fermat. Antoine Gombaud, Chevalier de Méré, a French nobleman with an interest in
gaming and gambling questions, called Pascal's attention to an apparent
contradiction concerning a popular dice game. The game consisted in throwing a pair
of dice 24 times; the problem was to decide whether or not to bet even money on the
occurrence of at least one "double six" during the 24 throws. A seemingly well-
established gambling rule led de Méré to believe that betting on a double six in 24
throws would be profitable, but his own calculations indicated just the opposite.

This problem and others posed by de Méré led to an exchange of letters between
Pascal and Fermat in which the fundamental principles of probability theory were
formulated for the first time. Although a few special problems on games of chance
had been solved by some Italian mathematicians in the 15th and 16th centuries, no
general theory was developed before this famous correspondence.

The Dutch scientist Christian Huygens, a teacher of Leibniz, learned of this

correspondence and shortly thereafter (in 1657) published the first book on
probability; entitled De Ratiociniis in Ludo Aleae, it was a treatise on problems
associated with gambling. Because of the inherent appeal of games of chance,
probability theory soon became popular, and the subject developed rapidly during the
18th century. The major contributors during this period were Jakob Bernoulli (1654-
1705) and Abraham de Moivre (1667-1754).

In 1812 Pierre de Laplace (1749-1827) introduced a host of new ideas and

mathematical techniques in his book, Théorie Analytique des Probabilités. Before
Laplace, probability theory was solely concerned with developing a mathematical
analysis of games of chance. Laplace applied probabilistic ideas to many scientific
and practical problems. The theory of errors, actuarial mathematics, and statistical
mechanics are examples of some of the important applications of probability theory
developed in the l9th century.

Like so many other branches of mathematics, the development of probability theory

has been stimulated by the variety of its applications. Conversely, each advance in
the theory has enlarged the scope of its influence. Mathematical statistics is one
important branch of applied probability; other applications occur in such widely
different fields as genetics, psychology, economics, and engineering. Many workers
have contributed to the theory since Laplace's time; among the most important are
Chebyshev, Markov, von Mises, and Kolmogorov.

One of the difficulties in developing a mathematical theory of probability has been to

arrive at a definition of probability that is precise enough for use in mathematics, yet
comprehensive enough to be applicable to a wide range of phenomena. The search
for a widely acceptable definition took nearly three centuries and was marked by
much controversy. The matter was finally resolved in the 20th century by treating
probability theory on an axiomatic basis. In 1933 a monograph by a Russian
mathematician A. Kolmogorov outlined an axiomatic approach that forms the basis
for the modern theory. (Kolmogorov's monograph is available in English translation
as Foundations of Probability Theory, Chelsea, New York, 1950.) Since then the
ideas have been refined somewhat and probability theory is now part of a more
general discipline known as measure theory."

Applications of Probability Theory in Life

Two major applications of probability theory in everyday life are inri sk assessment
and
in trade on commodity markets. Governments typically apply probabilistic methods
in environmental regulation where it is called "pathway analysis", normally,
measuring well- being using methods that are stochastic in nature, and choosing
projects to undertake based on statistical analyses of their probable effect on the
population as a whole. A good example is the effect of the perceived probability of
any widespread Middle East conflict on oil prices - which have ripple effects in the
economy as a whole and has a chance a stir another economy crisis. There will be
war everywhere particularly between the big countries and the small. Accordingly, the
probabilities are
not assessed independently nor necessarily very rationally.
It can reasonably be said that the discovery of rigorous methods to assess and
combine probability assessments has had a profound effect on modern society.
According to it, it may be of some importance to most citizens to understand how
odds and probability assessments are made, and how they contribute to reputations
and to decisions, especially in a country like Malaysia which practices democracy
parliament

Probability All Around Us :

Event Non-random Property Random Property

Weather Seasonal change and Local Temperature
Climate
Car Accidents Safety precaution taken Type of cars
Class Grades Efforts made by a individual Type of questions
and amount of studying
Customers at a Mall Number of days and duration Type of customers
State Lottery Decisions made on the Type of numbers drawn and
games and amount of prizes patterns on tickets

Importance of Probability Theory in Life

Business:

In business, probability theory is used in the calculation of long-term gains and

losses. This is how a company operates whose business is based on risk calculates
"probability of profitability" within acceptable margins. An example of this is the way in
which life insurance companies calculate the cost of life insurance policies and is
based on how many policy holders are reasonably expected to die within a year
versus revenue generated from other policies extended. In this scenario it is
important to point out that in order for a company to mitigate the risk associated with
loss of revenue it must issue a substantial number of policies

Decision making:

Some decisions are difficult because of the need to take into account how other
people in the situation will respond to the decision that is taken. The analysis of such
social decisions is more often treated under the label of game theory, rather than
decision theory, though it involves the same mathematical methods. These decisions
can be achieved through the probability theory. From the rules of game theory most
of the problems treated in decision theory are one-player games (or the one player is
viewed as playing against an impersonal background situation). In the emerging
socio-cognitive engineering the research is especially focused on the different types

of distributed decision-making in human organizations, in normal and

abnormal/emergency/crisis situations.

(b) The probability theory can be divided into two categories : Theoretical
Probabilities and Empirical Probabilities. Find out, discuss and write about the
differences between Theoretical and Empirical Probabilities.

Theoretical Probability of an event is the number of ways that the event can occur,
divided by the total number of outcomes. It is finding the probability of events that
come from a sample space of known equally likely outcomes.
 Theoretical Probability Formula

P(E) = probability that an event, E, will occur.

n(E) = number of equally likely outcomes of E.
n(S) = number of equally likely outcomes of sample space S.

Example 1: Find the probability of rolling a four on a fair die.

Answer: The sample space for rolling is die is 4 equally likely results: {1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6}.

The probability of rolling a 4 is one out of 6 or .

Empirical Probability of an event is an "estimate" that the event will happen based on
how often the event occurs after collecting data or running an experiment. It is based
specifically on direct observations or experiences.

Empirical Probability Formula

P(E) = probability that an event, E, will occur.

Top = number of ways the specific event occurs.
Bottom = number of ways the experiment could occur.
Example 2 : A survey was conducted to determine students' favorite food atcanteen.
Each student choses only one type of food.

cornflakes Mihun Fried Nasi Burger Laksa

noodles lemak
# 9 10 15 8 6

What is the probability that a student's favorite food is nasi lemak?

Answer: 15 out of the 48 students chose nasi lemak. The probability is 15 over 48
students so when simplified it’s 5 out of 16.

Comparing Empirical and Theoretical Probabilities

Meena and Balraj roll two dice 50 times and record their results in the chart.

1.) What is their empirical probability of rolling a 5?

2.) What is the theoretical probability of rolling a 5?
3.) How do the empirical and theoretical probabilities compare?

Sum of the rolls of two dice

3, 5, 5, 4, 6, 5, 7, 5, 9, 10
12, 9, 6, 5, 7, 8, 5, 4, 11, 6
8, 8, 10, 6, 7, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9
9, 7, 8, 11, 6, 5, 4, 7, 7, 4
3, 6, 7, 5, 7, 8, 6, 5, 8, 9
 Solution:

1.) Empirical probability is 10/50 = 20%.

2.) Theoretical probability (based upon what is possible when working with two dice)
6/36 = 1/6 = 16.7%

3.) Meena and Balraj rolled more 5's than would be expected theoretically.

Part 2

a) {1,2,3,4,5,6}

b)
 2nd Die 1 2 3 4 5 6
st
1 Die
1 (1,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5) (1,6)
2 3 4 5 6 7
2 (2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4) (2,5) (2,6)
3 4 5 6 7 8
3 (3,1) (3,2) (3,3) (3,4) (3,5) (3,6)
4 5 6 7 8 9
4 (4,1) (4,2) (4,3) (4,4) (4,5) (4,6)
5 6 7 8 9 10
5 (5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) (5,5) (5,6)
6 7 8 9 10 11
6 (6,1) (6,2) (6,3) (6,4) (6,5) (6,6)
7 8 9 10 11 12

Part 3

a) Table 1 shows the sum of all dots on both turned-up faces when two dices are
tossed simultaneously.

Sum of the dots on both Possible outcomes Probability, P(x)

turned-up faces (x)
2 (1,1)
3 (1,2), (2,1)
4 (1,3), (3,1), (2,2)
5 (1,4), (4,1), (2,3), (3,2)
 6 (1,5), (5,1), (2,4), (4,2), (3,3)
7 (1,6), (6,1), (2,5), (5,2), (3,4), (4,3)
8 (2,6), (6,2), (3,5), (5,3), (4,4)
9 (3,6), (6,3), (4,5), (5,4)
10 (4,6), (6,4), (5,5)
11 (5,6), (6,5)
12 (6,6)

Table 1

b)

A = {The two numbers are not the same}

A = { (1,2), (1,3), (1,4), (1,5), (1,6), (2,1), (2,3), (2,4), (2,5), (2,6), (3,1), (3,2), (3,4),
(3,5), (3,6), (4,1), (4,2), (4,3), (4,5), (4,6), (5,1), (5,2), (5,3), (5,4), (5,6), (6,1),
(6,2), (6,3), (6,4), (6,5) }

n (A) = 30

P (A) = =

B = {The product of the two numbers is greater than 36}

n (B) = 0

P (B) = = 0

C = {Both numbers are prime or the difference between two numbers is odd}

C ={ (1,2),(1,4),(1,6),(2,1),(2,2),(2,3),(2,5),(3,2),(3,3),(3,4),(3,5),(3,6), (4,1),(4,3),
(4,5),(5,2), (5,3),(5,4), (5,5), (5,6) (6,1), (6,3), (6,5) }
 n (C) = 23

P (C) =

D = {The sum of the two numbers are even and both numbers are prime}

D = { (2,2), (3,3), (3,5), (5,3), (5,5) }

n (D) = 5

P (D) =

Part 4

a)

Sum of two Frequency, fx fx2

numbers, x f
2 3 6 12
3 1 3 9
4 6 24 96
5 9 45 225
6 2 12 72
7 12 84 588
8 5 40 320
9 7 63 567
10 3 30 300
11 2 22 242
12 0 0 0
2
∑f=50 ∑fx=329 ∑fx =2431 ∑f=50

Mean, =

= 6.58
 Variance, = _

= _ (6.58)2

= 5.32

Standard Deviation, =

2.307

b) Very close to the results of 50 tosses

c)

Sum of two Frequency, fx fx2

numbers, x f
2 4 8 16
3 2 6 18
4 9 36 144
5 11 55 275
6 10 60 360
7 20 140 980
8 14 112 896
9 12 108 972
10 9 90 900
11 6 66 726
12 3 36 432
∑f=100 ∑fx=71 ∑fx2=5719
7
 Table 2

Based on Table 2 that you have completed, determine the value of :

Mean = 7.17

Variance =13.89

Standard Deviation =3.727

iv. Was your prediction proven?

The prediction is proven.

Part 5
a)

Mean = Σ xP(x) = 7
Variance = Σ x2P(x) - (mean)2
= 5.82
Standard Deviation = 2.412467616

[b]Compare the mean, variance and standard deviation obtained in Part 4 and
Part 5. What can you say about the values? Explain in your own words your
interpretation and your understanding of the values that you have obtained
and relate your answers to the Theoretical and Empirical Probabilities

Theoretical and practical values are very close. The minor discrepancy is due
to bias of the dice used. The standard deviation may vary slightly due to
number of sample size used in the experiment. If the sample size ( number
of tossess) is huge, standard deviation tends to be lower or closer to the
theoretical value. Basically as sample size is greater than 25, the standard
deviation discrepeancy getting negligible.

-0.237402849 < mean

2.175064767 < mean
4.587532384 < mean

[c] If n is the number of times two dice are tossed simultaneously, what
is the range of mean of the sum of all dots on the turned-up faces as n
changes? Make your conjecture and support your conjecture
 By both theoretical and experimental practise, the mean will not
fluctuate too much as n changes.

By probability,
99.73% coonfidence level, the mean will fall within +/- 3Sigma;
< 14.23740285 ( out of range of dice)
95.45% coonfidence level, the mean will fall within +/- 2Sigma;
< 11.82493523
68.27% coonfidence level, the mean will fall within +/- 2Sigma;
< 9.412467616

Further Exploration

In probability theory, the “Law of Large Numbers (LLN)’ is a theorem that

describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of
times. Conduct a research using the internet to find out the theory of LLN.
When you have finished with your research, discuss and write about your
findings. Relate the experiment that you have done in this project to the
LLN.

Definition of ‘Law of Large Numbers:

"That a particular specified event or coincidence will occur is very unlikely.
That some astonishing unspecified events will occur is certain. That is why
remarkable coincidences are noted in hindsight, not predicted with
foresight."--David G. Myers

For example, you might be in awe of the person who won the lottery twice,
thinking that the odds of anyone winning twice are astronomical. The New
York Times ran a story about a woman who won the New Jersey lottery
twice, calling her chances "1 in 17 trillion." However, statisticians Stephen
Samuels and George McCabe of Purdue University calculated the odds of
someone winning the lottery twice to be something like1 in 30 for a four
month period and better than even odds over a seven year period. Why?
Because players don't buy one ticket for each of two lotteries, they buy
multiple tickets every week

In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that

describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of
times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a
large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend
to become closer as more trials are performed. The LLN is important
because it "guarantees" stable long-term results for random events. It is
important to remember that the LLN only applies (as the name indicates)
when a large number of observations are considered. There is no principle
that a small number of observations will change to the expected value or
that a streak of one value will immediately be "balanced" by the others.

Some people find it surprising that there are more than 16 million others
on the planet who share their birthday. At a typical football game with
50,000 fans, most fans are likely to share their birthday with about 135
others in attendance. (The notable exception will be those born on
February 29. There will only be about 34 fans born on that day.) This was
another example of law of of large numbers.

In this experiment, the Law of Large Numbers was tested. The

theoretical probability is calculated using the formulas given. The
empirical probability is calculated by performing the experiments with an
increasing number of trials to estimate the theoretical value. When the
dice is tossed for 50 times, the value is nearly close to the true value.
When the dice is tossed for 100 times, the value is highly close to the true
value. When the dice is tossed for 200 times, the results were more close
than ever which will be very accurate.So the more number of time, the
better accurate results obtained. With this, I am proud to announce that
“law of large numbers “has been proved.

Reflection

While you were conducting the project, what have you learnt? What moral
values did you practice? Represent your opinions or feelings creatively
through usage of symbols, illustrations, drawings or even in a song.

I have begin to understand the uniqueness of this probability. I have also learnt
that each outcome is equally likely to happen. Probability is a measure of how likely
it is that some event will occur. It is a branch of Mathematics that occur together with
the analysis of random phenomena. The central objects of probability theory are
random variables, stochastic processes and events. In an event of tossing a coin or
rolling a die for numerous times, the repetitive rhythm of the sequence of random
events will exhibit certain statistical patterns which can be studied and predicted.

While I was conducting this project, I had learned some moral

values like being cooperative and respecting other people’s point of view. Moreover,
This project not only taught me to be
responsible but made me complet my work on time thanks to pn wein who pressed a
lot and the gave self confidence we neede the most. . This project had made me feel
more confident on additional mathematics and has given me another moral value
which is not giving up if we could not find the solution. Hence, this project has not
only created interest on additional mathematics but has tighten our freindships
among group members although we stand from different races and cultures. Thank
you once again for all who helped me relish my project.