Lecture 13: Introduction to Statistics by Dr.

Javed Iqbal
Probability is a numerical measure of the likelihood that an event will occur. Probabilities are
used as measure of the degree of uncertainty associated with the events under study. Probability
values are always assigned on a scale from 0 to 1. A probability near zero indicates an event is
nearly unlikely to occur; a probability near 1 indicates an event is almost certain to occur. Other
probabilities between 0 and 1 represent degrees of likelihood that an event will occur.

Three approaches to probability are:

(i) Classical or a priori: Probability of an event is calculated as the proportion of times that
an event will occur, assuming that all outcomes in a sample space are equally likely to
occur usually used in problems related to games of chance.
𝑓
𝑃(𝐴) =
𝑁

(ii) Relative frequency or statistical: This is used when an experiment is repeated a large
number of times and the frequency of outcome of interest A is noted. Probability is
calculated by a relative frequency of event occurrence.
𝑓
𝑃(𝐴) = lim
𝑁 →∞ 𝑁

(iii) Subjective: This is based on one’s own belief about the level of uncertainty of the event.

Experiment: Any process that generates a set of data.

Ex1: Tossing of a coin. In this experiment, there are only two possible outcomes, heads or tails.
Ex2: Launching of a missile and observing its range (in KM).
Ex3: Observing number of road accidents that can occur in a month between two specific points.
Ex4: Observing income tax record by tax authorities selected at random to assess whether it is
filed correctly or with error.
Ex5: A retrospective study in which historical data on monthly electric power consumption and
average monthly temperature are observed.
Ex6: Inspecting an assembly line to observe whether product being produced is ‘defective’ or
‘non-defective’.
Ex7: Observing whether a customer entering the store will purchase a shirt or not.
Ex8: Observing the daily change in an index of stock market prices.
Ex9: Recording tensile strength of textile fabrics at each combination of 5 cotton-polyester mix
(20,80),(40,60),(50,50), (60,40) (80,20).

In each of these cases whether they are designed experiments, observational studies (e.g. surveys),
and retrospective studies, the end result is a set of data that is subject to uncertainty. We are
particularly interested in the observations obtained by repeating the experiment several times. In
most cases, the outcomes will depend on chance and, therefore, cannot be predicted with certainty.
If a chemical scientist runs an experiment several times under the same conditions, he or she will
obtain different measurements, indicating an element of chance in the experimental procedure.
When a coin is tossed repeatedly, we cannot be certain that a given toss will result in a head.
However, we know the entire set of possibilities for each toss.

Sample Space: The set of all possible outcomes of a statistical experiment is called the sample
space and is represented by the symbol S. In some experiments, it is helpful to list the elements of
the sample space systematically by means of a tree diagram.

Ex: Write sample space for the following experiments (1) Toss of coin: (2), Toss of a die (plural:
‘dice’) (3) Toss of a coin and the roll of a die. (4) Suppose that three items are selected at random
from a manufacturing process. Each item is inspected and classified defective, D, or non-defective,
N.

(1) S = {H, T}
(2) S = {1,2,3,4,5,6}
(3) S = {(H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6}
(4) S = {DDD, DDN, DND, DNN, NDD, NDN, NND, NNN}

Sample spaces with a large or infinite number of sample points are best described by a statement
or rule method. For example, if the possible outcomes of an experiment are the set of cities in the
world with a population over 1 million, our sample space is written as:
S = {x | x is a city with a population over 1 million}

Event: An event is a subset of a sample space.

Given the sample space S = {t | t ≥ 0}, where t is the life in years of a certain electronic component,
the event A that the component fails before the end of the fifth year is the subset
A = {t | 0 ≤ t < 5}.

Probability of an event is equal to the sum of the probabilities of the sample points in the event.
Weiss Example 4.3, p- 181 of dice (find the sample space and the events asked) , Example 4.5,
p-187 (deck of playing cards): Events defined on it.

Probability of an Event for Equally Likely Outcomes: (f /N ) Rule p -180 Weiss:

Example 4.3, p-181 and 4.5, p-187
Complement of an Event: Given an event A, the complement of A is defined to be the event
consisting of all sample that are not in A. The complement of A is denoted by 𝐴′, Ac or 𝐴̅. Note
that P(A) + P(𝐴̅) =1

Union of two events:

The union of A and B is the event containing all sample points belonging to A or B or both. The
union is denoted by A U B.

Intersection of two events:

Given two events A and B, the intersection of A and B is the event containing the sample points
belonging to both A and B. The intersection is denoted by A ∩ B.

Venn diagram to represent events and their combinations

Addition Law of Probability:

P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B) − P(A ∩ B)

Note: First define events in words. Show all steps in writing solution.

Ex1: Consider a recent study conducted by the personnel manager of a major computer software
company. The study showed that 30% of the employees who left the firm within two years did so
primarily because they were dissatisfied with their salary, 20% left because they were dissatisfied
with their work assignments, and 12% of the former employees indicated dissatisfaction with both
their salary and their work assignments. What is the probability that an employee who leaves
within two years does so because of dissatisfaction with salary, dissatisfaction with the work
assignment, or both?
(ans: 0.38)
Ex2: A cell phone company found that 75% of all customers want text messaging on their phones,
80% want photo capability, and 65% want both. What is the probability that a customer will want
at least one of these?
(ans: 0.90)

Mutually Exclusive Events:

Two events A and B are said to be mutually exclusive if the events have no sample points in
common i.e. P(A ∩ B) = 0 i.e. both cannot occur together.

Addition Law of Probability for Mutually Exclusive Event is simplified to:

P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B)

Ex3: Shown here are the raw values matrix for the results of a national survey of 200 executives
who were asked to identify the geographic location of their company and their company’s industry
type. The executives were only allowed to select one location and one industry type.
Suppose a respondent is selected randomly from these data.
a. What is the probability that the respondent is from the Midwest (F)?
b. What is the probability that the respondent is from the communications industry (C) and
from the Northeast (D)?
c. What is the probability that the respondent is from the communications industry (C) or from
the Northeast (D)?
d. What is the probability that the respondent is from the Southeast (E) or from the finance
industry (A)?
e. What is the probability that the respondent is from the finance (A) and from the
manufacturing industry (B)?

[Ans: (a) 0.21 (b) 0.14 (c) 0.64 (d) 0.4 (e) 0 ]

Weiss Example 4.13, p-198

[Add part b: Find the probability that a person arrested is a female or under 18 year of age.
(Ans: 0.346). [Hint: Use addition law. To finding 𝑃(𝑀′ ∩ 𝐸), use of Venn diagram gives
𝑃(𝑀′ ∩ 𝐸) = P(E) – 𝑃(𝑀 ∩ 𝐸)].

HW: Weiss Ex 4.98, p-201 (Ans: 0.559), 4.97 part d and e (Ans: 10/36).

Addition law of probability for three events:

𝑃(𝐴 U 𝐵 U 𝐶) = 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐵) + 𝑃(𝐶) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) − 𝑃(𝐵 ∩ 𝐶) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐶) + 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 ∩ 𝐶)

This rule can be proved if we denote B U C by D and applying general addition rule on A U D as:
𝑃(𝐴 𝑈 𝐷) = 𝑃(𝐴) + 𝑃(𝐷) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐷)
𝑃(𝐷) = 𝑃(𝐵 𝑈 𝐶) = 𝑃(𝐵) + 𝑃(𝐶) − 𝑃(𝐵 ∩ 𝐶)
And 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐷) = 𝑃[𝐴 ∩ (𝐵 𝑈 𝐶)] can be seen from Venn diagram to be:
𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵) + 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐶) − 𝑃(𝐴 ∩ 𝐵 ∩ 𝐶) , hence proved.
Weiss Ex 4.101, p-201 (Ans: 0.927)

The addition law for mutually exclusive events can be easily generalized to more than two
events
𝑃(𝐴1 𝑈 𝐴2 𝑈 … ) = 𝑃(𝐴1 ) + 𝑃(𝐴2 ) + ⋯