Chapter 5

Some Rules
Of
Probability
 The Sample Space
• The word “Sample” is used in a very wide
statistics area.
• Sample space defined as the set of all
possible outcomes
• Ex: Mr. T may choose 4 of his 25 students
to solve the mathematic problems in the
white board. How many does the sample
space consist of?
 Events
Experiment: A fair die is cast.
An Event is
the collection
of one or more
Possible outcomes: The
outcomes of an numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
experiment or
One possible event: The
any subset of a occurrence of an even
sample space. number. That is, we collect
the outcomes 2, 4, and 6.
 Mutually Exclusive and
Independent Events
Events are Mutually
Exclusive if the Events are Independent if the
occurrence of any one occurrence of one event does not
event means that none of affect the occurrence of another.
the others can occur at the
same time.
Independence: Rolling a 2
on the first throw does not
Mutually exclusive: influence the probability of
Rolling a 2 prohibits a 3 on the next throw. It is
rolling a 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 still a one in 6 chance.
on the same roll.
 Events
• The union of two events A and B, denoted by
A ∪ B, is the event that consists of all elements
(outcomes) contained in event A, in event B, or in
both.
• The intersection of two events A and B, denoted
by A ∩ B, is the event that consists of all the
elements (outcomes) contained in both A and B.
• The complement of event A, denoted by A′, is the
event that consists of all the elements (outcomes)
of the sample space that are not contained in A
 Example
• A student marks 7 books with the numbers 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6 and 7, so that the sample space for selecting
one of books is the set S = {1,2,3,4,5,6,7}. Let
X = {1,3,5,7}
Y = {1,2,4,6}
Z = {2,4,5,6}
List the outcomes that comprise each of the
following events:
a. X ∩ Y c. Y′ ∩ Z′
b. X ∪ Y d. Y ∩ Z′
 Some Basic Rules of Probability
• Probabilities are real numbers between 0 and 1,
inclusive
• If an event is certain to occur, its probability is 1,
and if an event is certain not to occur, its
probability is 0
• The sum of the probabilities that an event will
occur and that it will not occur is equal to 1
• If two events are mutually exclusive, the
probability that one or the other will occur equals
the sum of their probabilities
 Basic Rules of Probability
If two events
A and B are mutually exclusive,
the
Special Rule of Addition states
that the
Probability of A or B occurring
equals the sum of their
respective probabilities.

P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B)

 Example
New England Commuter Airways recently supplied
the following information on their commuter flights
from Boston to New York:

Find the probability that a flight is either early or late

 Answer
If A is the event that a If B is the event that a
flight arrives early, flight arrives late, then
then P(A) = 100/1000 P(B) = 75/1000 = .075.
= .10.

The probability that a flight is either early or late

is:
P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) = .10 + .075 =.175.
 Probabilities and Odds
• The odds that an event will occur are given
by the ratio of the probability that it will
occur to the probability that it will not occur
• Symbolically, if the probability of an event
is p, the odds for its occurrence are a to b,
where a and b are positive values such that
a p
=
b 1-p
 Example
• What are the odds for the occurrence of an
event if its probability is
a. 3/4
b. 4/9
c. 0.70
d. 0.40
 Probabilities and Odds
• If the odds are a to b that an event will occur, the
probability of its occurrence is

a
p = --------
a+b

• Ex: Convert the businessman’s 3 to 2 odds for the

success of the new beverage store into a
probability
 Some Addition Rules
• If k events are mutually exclusive, the
probability that one of them will occur
equals the sum of their respective
probabilities.
• In symbols
P(A1∪A2∪ …∪Ak) = P(A1)+P(A2)+ …
+P(Ak)
for any mutually exclusive events
 General Addition Rule
• If A and B are two events that are not mutually
exclusive, then P(A or B) is given by the following
formula
P(A∪B) = P(A) + P(B) –
P(A∩B)
• When A and B are mutually exclusive, note that
P(A∩B) = 0
• Example: If one card is drawn from an ordinary
deck of 52 playing cards,what is the probability
that it will be either a club or a face card (king,
queen, or jack)?
 Example
In a sample of 500 students, 320 said they had a
stereo, 175 said they had a TV, and 100 said they had
both.

TV
175
Both
Stereo 100
320
 Example (Cont’d)
If a student is selected at
random, what is the probability
that the student has only a
stereo or TV? What is the
probability that the student has
both a stereo and TV?

P(S or TV) = P(S) + P(TV) - P(S and TV)

= 320/500 + 175/500 – 100/500
= .79.
P(S and TV) = 100/500
= .20
Conditional Probability
A Conditional Probability is the
probability of a particular event occurring,
given that another event has occurred.

The probability of
event A occurring
given that the event
B has occurred is
written P(A|B).
 Conditional Probability
• In Formula:
P(A∩B)
P(A⏐B) = ------------
P(B)
• Example: The records of annual meetings of a
certain corporation show that the probability is 0.3
that its stockholders will attend the annual meeting
in person. The probability that a stockholder who
will attend the meeting in person and will vote at
the meeting is 0.25. What is the probability that a
stockholder will vote given a time that he or she
will be attend the meeting in person??
 General Rule of Multiplication

The General It states that for two

events A and B, the
Rule of
joint probability that
Multiplication is both events will happen
used to find the joint is found by multiplying
probability that two the probability that
events will occur. event A will happen by
the conditional
probability of B given
that A has occurred.
General Rule of Multiplication

The joint probability,

P(A and B), is given by the
following formula:

P(A and B) = P(A)P(B/A)

or
P(A and B) = P(B)P(A/B)
 Example
The Dean of the School of Business at Owens University
collected the following information about undergraduate
students in her college:
 Example (Cont’d)
If a student is selected at random, what is the
probability that the student is a female (F)
and accounting major (A)?

P(A and F) = 110/1000.

What is the probability that
she is an accounting major,
given that the student is a
female?
P(A|F) = P(A and F)/P(F)
= [110/1000]/[400/1000] = .275
 Special Rule of Multiplication
The Special Rule of Multiplication
requires that two events A and B are
independent.

Two events A and B are independent if the

occurrence of one has no effect on the probability of
the occurrence of the other.

This rule is written: P(A and B) = P(A)P(B)

 Example
Chris owns two stocks, IBM
and General Electric (GE).
The probability that IBM stock
will increase in value next year
is .5 and the probability that
GE stock will increase in value
next year is .7. Assume the
two stocks are independent.
What is the probability that
both stocks will increase in P(IBM and GE) = (.5)(.7) = .35
value next year?
Bayes’s Theorem
Bayes’ Theorem is a method
for revising a probability
given additional information.

It is computed using the

following formula:
 Example

Duff Cola Company recently

received several complaints that
their bottles are under-filled. A
complaint was received today
but the production manager is
unable to identify which of the
two Springfield plants (A or B)
filled this bottle. What is the
probability that the under-filled
bottle came from plant A?
Example (Cont’d)
The following table summarizes the Duff
production experience.

% of
% of total underfilled
production bottle

A 55 3.0

B 45 4.0
Answer

The likelihood the bottle was filled in

Plant A is reduced from .55 to .4783.
End of Lecture