PROBABILITY

-Mr. VIPIN KHURANA

Terminology

RANDOM EXPERIMENT –Random Experiment is an operation or an attempt

whose outcome is not known to us with certainty. For e.g.: Toss of a coin, throw
of a die, draw from a pack of cards etc.

TRIAL & EVENT –Process that is done to implement the Random Experiment
is known as Trial & the outcome of the Trial is known as the Event. For e.g.:
Toss of a coin is a Trial & appearance of head (or tail) is an Event.

SAMPLE SPACE (S) –A set of all possible outcomes of an experiment is called

the Sample Space of that experiment. For e.g.: the sample space for throw of a
single die is (S=) {1,2,3,4,5,6}. Sample Space is denoted by letter S.

EQUALLY LIKELY EVENTS –Two events are said to be equally likely if there
is no reason to substitute one for the other. For e.g.: like in a toss of a coin it is
equally likely that head or a tail will show up.

FAVORABLE EVENT –An event is said to be favorable than the other if the
probability of its occurrence is greater than the other. For e.g.: if an urn contains
2 white balls and 1 black then the event that the ball drawn from the urn is white
is more favorable than the event of the drawn ball being black.

MUTUALLY EXHAUSTIVE EVENTS –Two or more events of an experiment

are said to be mutually exhaustive if there is no other possible outcome of that
experiment i.e. summation of the probability of these events is one. For e.g.: in a
toss of a coin there is no other possible outcome apart from Head or Tail. So,
they are mutually exhaustive events in relation to toss of a coin.
MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS –An event A & an event B are said to be
mutually exclusive in nature if A & B do not share any common elements i.e. A
intersection B is equal to null. For e.g.: the events of drawing a red card &
drawing a club card from a pack of card are Mutually Exclusive.

MATHEMATICAL/CLASSICAL PROBABILITY

Defn –If there are n exhaustive cases which mutually exclusive & equally likely,
& m out of n cases are favorable cases to the happening of the event A then,

m
P(A) = n = favorable cases/exhaustive cases
||y, cases not favorable to A,

m nm
P(A`) = 1- n
= n
= 1 – P(A)

STASTICAL PROBABILITY

Defn –If a trial is repeated a number of times under homogeneous condition then
the limiting value of the ratio of number of times an event happens to the number
of trials, where the number of trials is indefinitely large is called Probability of
the event. For e.g.: event E happens m times out of n trials where n is very large
then statistical probability of happening of E is the limiting ratio of the number
of event happening to the number of trials i.e.,

m
P(E) = lim
n  n
= limit m/n as n approaches infinity
 AXIOMATIC PROBABILITY

Defn –Let S be the sample space & A be an event defined on the sample space
then the function P(A) is called probability function if it satisfies following
axioms:

(A) 0  P(A)  1
(B) P(S) = 1
(C) If A1, A2,……….An are mutually exclusive & mutually exhaustive
events then,
P(A1 U A2 U ...........U An) = P(A1) + P(A2) + ..............+ P(An).

SOME IMPORTANT THEOREMS:

I – If A is an event in the finite sample space S, then P(A) equals the sum of the
probabilities of the individual outcomes comprising A.

II –If A & B are any events in S, then

P(A U B) = P(A) + P(B) – P(A  B)
{General Addition Rule}
P(A U B) = P(A) +P(B) , if P(A  B) = 0
{Special Addition Rule}

||y, for events A, B & C in S, we can prove that

P(A U B U C) = P(A) + P(B) + P(C) – P(A  B) – P(B  C) – P(C  A) +

P(A  B  C)
 CONDITIONAL PROBABILITY

If A & B are any events in S and P(B)  0, the probability of occurrence of A

with the complete certainty of the occurrence of event B is known as Conditional
Probability of A given B & is calculated as

P( A  B)
P(A/B) = P( B)

||y, we can prove from the above formulae that if A & B are independent events,
then

P(A  B) = P(A).P(B)
{Special Multiplicative Rule}

BAYE’S THEOREM

If B1, B2,……….Bn are mutually exclusive events of which one must occur, then

P ( Br ).P ( A / Br )
P(Br/A) =  P( Bi ).P( A / Bi ) for r = 1,2,…..n.
n

i 1

MATHEMATICAL EXPECTATION

If the probabilities of obtaining the amounts a1, a2,……., or ak are p1, p2, ………
& pk, then the mathematical expectation is
k

a1 p1  a 2 p 2  ......  akpk
ap
i 1
i i

E= p1  p 2  ........  pk = k

p
i 1
i

*****************************************************************
 PROBLEMS BASED ON PROBABILITY

Q1. What is the chance that a leap year, selected at random, will contain 53
Sundays?
(Ans- 2/7)

Q2. A card is drawn from an ordinary pack & a gambler bets that it is a spade or
an ace. What are the odds against his winning this bet?
(Ans- 9 to 4)

Q3. From a pack of 52 cards three are drawn at random. Find the chance that
they are a king, a queen & a knave.
(Ans- 16/5525)

Q4. Four cards are drawn without replacement. What is the probability that
a. they are all aces?
b. they are all of different suits?
(ans- a. 1/270725 b. 2197/20825)

Q5. Four persons are chosen at random from a group containing 3 men, 2 women
& 4 children. Show that the chance that exactly two of them will be children is
10/21.

Q6. Three groups of children contain respectively 3 girls & 1 boy; 2 girls & 2
boys; 1 girl & 3 boys. One child is selected at random from each group. Show
that the chance that the three selected consists of 1 girl & 2 boys is 13/32.

Q7. A can hit a target 4 times in 5 shots; B 3 times in 4 shots; C 2 times in 3

shots. They fire a volley. What is the probability that two shots at least hit?
(Ans- 5/6)

Q8. In four throws, with a pair of dice, what is the chance of throwing doublets
twice at least?
(Ans- 19/144)
Q9. If on an average 1 vessel in every 10 is wrecked. Find the probability that
out of 5 vessels expected to arrive, 4 at least will arrive safely.
(Ans- 45927/50000)

Q10. What is the probability of getting 9 cards of the same suit in one hand at the
game of Bridge?
4 * 13C * 39C
9 4
(Ans- 52C 13
)

Q11. From a group of 3 Indians, 4 Pakistanis & 5 Americans a sub-committee of

4 people is selected by lots. Find the probability that the sub-committee will
consists of
a. 2 Indians & 2 Pakistanis.
b. 1 Indian, 1 Pakistani & 2 Americans.
c. 4 Americans.
3C * 4C
2 2 3C * 4C * 6C
1 1 2 5C 4
(Ans- a. 12C 4
b. 12C
4
c. 12C ) 4

Q12. A bag contains 6 white & 9 black balls. Four balls are drawn at a time. Find
the probability for the first draw to give four white & second to give four black
balls in each of the following cases:
a. the balls are replaced before second draw.
b. the balls are not replaced before the second draw.
(ans- a. 3/715 b. 6/5926)

*****************************************************************