Consider a day in the

life of an average
student.
You wake up in the morning and the
sunlight hits your eyes. Then suddenly
without warning the world becomes an
uncertain place.
How long will you have to wait for
the Number 10 Bus this morning?
When it arrives will it be full?
Will it be out of service?
Will it be raining while you wait?
Will you be late for your 9am Maths
lecture?
 Probability
is the
Science of Uncertainty.
 Consider
a Real Problem

Can you make money playing the

Lottery?
Let us calculate chances of winning.
To do this we need to learn some basic
rules about probability.
These rules are mainly just ways of
formalising basic common sense .
Example: What are the chances that you
get a HEAD when you toss a coin?
Example: What are the chances you get a
combined total of 7 when you roll two dice?
 1.1 Experiments
An Experiment leads to a single
outcome which cannot be predicted
with certainty.
Examples-
Toss a coin: head or tail
Roll a die: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Take medicine: worse, same, better

Set of all outcomes Sample Space.

Toss a coin Sample space = {h,t}

Roll a die Sample space = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
 1.2 Probability
The Probability of an outcome is a
number between 0 and 1 that measures
the likelihood that the outcome will
occur when the experiment is
performed. (0=impossible, 1=certain).

Probabilities of all sample points must

sum to 1.
Long run relative frequency interpretation.
EXAMPLE: Coin tossing experiment
P(H)=0.5 P(T)=0.5
 1.3 Events

An event is a specific collection of

sample points.

The probability of an event A is

calculated by summing the
probabilities of the outcomes in the
sample space for A.
 Example:
THE GAME Of CRAPS
In Craps one rolls two fair dice.

What is the probability of the

sum of the two dice showing 7?
(1,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5) (1,6)
(2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4) (2,5) (2,6)
(3,1) (3,2) (3,3) (3,4) (3,5) (3,6)
(4,1) (4,2) (4,3) (4,4) (4,5) (4,6)
(5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) (5,5) (5,6)
(6,1) (6,2) (6,3) (6,4) (6,5) (6,6)

(1,6)
(2,5)
(3,4)
(4,3)
(5,2)
(6,1)
1.5 Equally likely
outcomes
So the Probability of 7 when
rolling two dice is 1/6
This example illustrates the
following rule:

In a Sample Space S of equally

likely outcomes. The probability
of the event A is given by
P(A) = #A / #S
That is the number of outcomes
in A divided by the total number
of events in S.
 1.6 Sets
A compound event is a composition of
two or more other events.
AC: The Complement of A is the event
that A does not occur
AB : The Union of two events A and
B is the event that occurs if either A or
B or both occur, it consists of all sample
points that belong to A or B or both.
AB: The Intersection of two events
A and B is the event that occurs if both
A and B occur, it consists of all sample
points that belong to both A and B
Tossing a fair coin
Prob of equal
numbers of H and T

# of
2 4 6 8 10
tosses

3/8 5/16 35/128 63/256

Prob 0.5 0.375 0.3125 0.273 0.246