STAT 241 – Unit 3 Notes

Experiment – an activity that has specific results that occur, but it is unknown which results will occur.

Outcomes – the results of an experiment

Event – a set of certain outcomes of an experiment that you want to have happen

Samples space – collection of all possible outcomes of the experiment usually denoted as S.

Event space – the set of outcomes that make up an event, the symbol ius usually a capital letter at the
beginning of the alphabet like A, B, C

Tree diagram – a graphical way of representing a random experiment with multiple steps

Computing Probabilities:

Classical Approach to Probability (Theoretical Probability)

P(A) = # of ways a can occur / # of different outcomes in s

Empirical Probability (Experimental or Relative Frequency Probability)

P(A) = # of times A occurs / # of times experiment was repeated

Subjective Probability

Mutually exclusive or disjoint – when two events cannot happen at the same time.

Intersection of two points = A n B

Union of two points = P (A n B) n = and

P (A n B) = P (A) * P (B)

1 – [P (A) + P (B) – P (A n B)]

General Multiplication Rule: P (A n B) = P (A) * P (B|A)

Conditional Probability Rule: P (A|B) = P (A n B) / P (B) or P (B|A) = P (A n B) / P (A)