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Probability
Probability is the study of events and how likely they are to happen. This
likelihood is usually expressed as a fraction. The denominator expresses the total
number of possible events in a given situation while the numerator expresses the
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number of ways that the indicated event can happen. Sometimes this fraction is
converted to a decimal or a percentage, depending on the situation.

The two most common situations that most people think of when they hear
probability are the weather and games of chance.

In the days leading up to an outdoor event, many people anxiously check the
weather report seeing what the “chance” of rain is. Most know that a 10% chance of
rain means it is unlikely while a 90% chance of rain means rain is likely.

These probabilities, while grounded in the science of meteorology, are not

usually calculated by examining all possible situations, as that is impossible.
Instead, they are educated guesses based on past experiences and meteorological
conditions.

Most games of chance, however, can be represented mathematically by

probabilities.

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For example, the probability of a coin flip landing on heads is ½, and the
probability of a coin flip landing on tails is ½. The probability of a die landing on
the number three is 1/6, but the probability of the die landing on an even number is
3/6=1/2.

The key with games of chance is that they also usually include a monetary value and
psychological component. This is why some probabilities about games of chance,
such as the famous Monty Hall problem, surprise people. Their intuition of the
probability is different from the probability calculated mathematically. This is also
why “the house always wins” in any casino.

Probability is closely related to the

mathematical subject of combinatorics,
which is also discussed in this guide.
Whereas probability determines the
likelihood of events based on the
number of possible events and
favorable outcomes, combinatorics
seeks to determine the number of
possible events and favorable outcomes. While that may seem simple for something
like rolling a die or flipping a coin, it gets much more complicated when considering
the possible number of five card hands drawn from a 52-card deck.

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Both probability and combinatorics provide an important base for further

mathematical study in statistics and graph theory. Because statistics is useful in
every kind of social and physical science and graph theory provides a lot of the basis
of computer and network studies, probability is used in just about every subject in
some way or another.

This resource guide begins by explaining what is meant by the concept of an “event”
in theoretical and concrete circumstances. It then gives strategies for finding the
likelihood of events, including the construction of tree diagrams and conditional
probability.

The guide then introduces combinatorics for the calculation of probabilities before
ending with an exploration of how probability is used in both basic and advanced
statistics.

Sample Space
Probability of an event
Theoretical Probability
Experimental Probability
Complementary Events

Diagrams and Conditional Probability

Just as probability is used to determine the likelihood of individual events, it can be

used to determine the likelihood of compound events. Consider, for example that
someone, instead of tossing a coin once, tossed it twice.

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The first toss would either yield heads or tails. The second coin toss would also yield
heads or tails. The possible outcomes for such an experiment are heads-heads,
heads-tails, tails-heads, and tails-tails.

This can of course quickly become complicated for experiments that have more than
two outcomes or that are performed more than twice. That is what makes tree
diagrams, a kind of probabilistic flow chart, so useful. They provide a way of
organizing the likelihood of different events in an experiment.

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This topic begins by explaining tree diagrams and other ways of visually
constructing probabilities. It then introduces concepts used to calculate compound
events, namely mutual exclusivity, independence, and dependence. These concepts
are used to determine conditional probability, or the probability of one thing given
another.

Finally, the subject ends by exploring the difference between probability with and
without replacement.

Tree Diagram
Probability Without Replacement
Dice probability
Coin ip probability
Probability with replacement
Geometric probability

Events

Probability relies on the likelihood of events, but what is an event?

An event can be thought of as an outcome. In a coin flip, there are two possible
outcomes: heads and tails.

When rolling a die, there are 6 possible outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

When selecting a card from a deck,

there are 52 possible outcomes.

All of these outcomes are equally likely,

but events do not have to be equally
likely. For example, the possible
outcomes of a blood type test are O, A,
B, and AB. In the United States, the
probability that a person chosen at
random will have O is 0.44 or 44%, not 0.25 or 25%.
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This topic introduces samples and the probability of events by comparing

theoretical and experimental probability. It also explains event complements.

The section ends by providing examples of uses of these probabilities, including

geometric applications and coin and dice problems.

Mutually exclusive events

Independent events
Dependent events
Conditional probability

Combinatorics

Many people have heard that a Rubik’s cube has

43,252,003,274,489,856,000 different possible configurations.

That number is read as “forty-three quintillion, two-hundred fifty-two quadrillion,

three trillion, two-hundred seventy-four billion, four-hundred eight-nine billion,
eight-hundred fifty-six thousand.” Even reading the number aloud at a normal
speed takes almost twenty seconds!

How did people determine this incredibly large number?

Rather than try each one and write it down to make sure there were no repeats (a
process that would take about 1.4 trillion years if it took one second to try and
record each configuration), mathematicians used combinatorics.

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Combinatorics is the mathematics of

counting large numbers of possibilities. It
uses factorials, permutations, and
combinations to do that. Permutations are
the number of ways to rearrange a group of
objects where the order matters.
Combinations are groupings of objects from
a set where the order does not matter.
Factorials are used to help calculate both of
these.

This topic begins by explaining how to use factorials and their application is
permutations and combinations. It ends by relating these concepts to statistics.

Factorial
Permutation
Combinations

Probability Used in Statistics

Perhaps the most famous use of probability in other branches of mathematics is its
use is statistics. Statistics typically takes a sample of a population and extrapolates
using probability to make determinations about the population itself. This section
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explores those applications by looking at the mathematics behind them.

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The topic begins by explaining what a random variable is and why randomness
matters in probability and statistics. It also explains how to use probability to
determine a probability density function. The section also discusses different
distribution functions used in statistics and how they are used to determine an
expected value. Finally, the section concludes with how to calculate and use z-scores
and Bayes’ theorem.

Random Variable
Probability Density Functions
Binomial Distribution
Expected Value
Poisson Distribution
Normal Distribution
Z-Score
Bayes’ Theorem

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