Chapter 5

Elementary probability

Alemakef Wagnew M.(Bsc. in statistics and MPH)

University of Gondar

April 9, 2019

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 Chapter 5: Elementary Probability

Introduction:
Probability theory is the foundation upon which the logic of inference
is built.

It helps us to cope up with uncertainty.

In general, probability is the chance of an outcome of an experiment.

It is the measure of how likely an outcome is to occur.

In Statistics, sensible numerical statements can be made about

uncertainty / certainty and apply different approaches to calculate
these uncertainties/certainties.

These numerical measures of uncertainties/certainties are called

probabilities of occurrence of the events.

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 Key terms

Key Terms in Probability

 Experiment: Any process of observation or measurement or any
process which generates well defined outcome.
 Probability Experiment (Random Experiment): It is an
experiment that can be repeated any number of times under similar
conditions
 Outcome: The result of a single trial of a random experiment
 Sample space, S: a collection/set of all possible outcomes of an
experiment
 Event, E: Any subset of sample space, S.
 Simple /elementary event: An event consisting a single out come.
 Equally Likely Events: Events which have the same chance of
occurring.
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 Key terms

Key terms in probability

 Certain event: An event which is sure to occur.
 Impossible event: An event which can’t occur.
 Complement of an event: The complement of event A (denoted by
0
A or Ac ), consists of all the sample points inthe sample space that not in

 Independent events: Two events are said to be independent if the

occurrence of one is not affected by, and does not affect, the other. If
two events are not independent, then they are said to be dependent.
 Equally likely out comes: If each out come in an experiment has the
same chance to occur, then the outcomes are said to be equally likely

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 Counting Rule

In order to calculate probabilities, we have to know

 The number of elements of an event

 The number of elements of the sample space

 In order to determine the number of outcomes, one can use several
rules of counting.
The addition rule
The multiplication rule
Permutation rule
Combination rule

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 Addition Rule

Addition Rule
If event A can occur in m possible ways and event B can occur in n
possible ways, there are m+n possible ways for either event A or event B
to occur, but only if there are —no events in common between them.

n(AorB) = nA + nB − n(A ∩ B) (1)

Example: A student goes to the nearest snack to have a breakfast. He

can take tea, coffee, or milk with bread, cake and sandwich. How many
possibilities does he have?

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 The Multiplication Rule

The Multiplication Rule

If a choice consists of k steps of which the first can be made in n1
ways, the second can be made in n2 ways, the
Kt h canbemadeinnk ways, thenthewholechoicecanbemadeinn1 × n2 ×
n3 ..........nx ways.
Example :A student has two shoes, three trousers and three jackets.
In how many can be dressed?

Example 2: The digits 0, 1, 2, 3, and 4 are to be used in 4 digit

identification card. How many different cards are possible if:
1 Repetitions are permitted.

2 Repetitions are not permitted.

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 Permutations

Permutation
The number of possible permutations is the number of different orders in
which particular events occur. The number of possible permutations are:

n!
Np r = (2)
(n − r )!
where r is the number of events in the series,
n is the number of possible events, and
n! denotes the factorial of n = the product of all the positive integers
from 1 to n.

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 Combinations

Combinations
 When the order in which the events occurred is of no interest, we are
dealing with combinations. The number of possible combinations is
 
n n!
Nc = = (3)
k r !(n − r )!

where r is the number of events in the series,

n is the number of possible events, and
n! denotes the factorial of n = the product of all the positive integers
from 1 to n.

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 Approaches to measuring Probability

There are four different conceptual approaches to study probability

theory.

 The classical approach.

 The frequencies approach.

 The axiomatic approach.

 The subjective approach.

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 The Classical Approach

if there are m outcomes in a sample space (universal set), and all are
equally likely of being the result of an experimental measurement,
then the probability of observing an event (a subset) that contains s
outcomes is given by s m

All outcomes are equally likely and mutually exclusive.

Total number of outcome is finite, say N.

The probability that event A occur denoted P(A) is defined as:

Na n(A) No. ofOutcome favourable for A

p(A) = = = (4)
N n(s) Total number of outcomes

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 The Classical Approach

Limitation
 If it is not possible to enumerate all the possible outcomes for an
experiment.

 If the sample points (outcomes) are not mutually independent.

 If the total number of outcomes is infinite.

 If each and every outcomes is not equally likely.

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 Example

Example 5: A fair die is tossed once. What is the probability of getting

i Number 4?

ii An odd number?

iii Number greater than 4?

iv Either 1 or 2 or . Or 6

v Number 8 ?

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 The Frequencies Approach

Relative frequency probability: If some process is repeated a large

number of n times, and some resulting event E occurs m times, the
relative frequency of E (m/n) will be approximately equal to the
probability of E
Symbolically:

m
Pr (E ) =
n

E.g. Suppose that of 158 people who attended a dinner party, 99 were
ill due to food poisoning. The probability of illness for a person
selected at random is

99
Pr (illness) = = 0.63
158
or = 63%
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 Axiomatic Approach

Let E be a random experiment and S be a sample space associated

with E. With each event A
i P(A)≥ 0
ii 0≤ p(A) ≤ 1
iii P(s)=1
iv If A and B are mutually exclusive events, P (A∪B) = P(A) + P(B)
0
P(A ) = 1 − P(A)
v P(φ) = 0, φ is impossible event

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 Subjective Approach

Subjective probability: measures the confidence or a wish that a

particular individual has in the truth of a particular proposition

E.g. If some one says that he is 95 % certain that a cure for AIDS
will be discovered within 5 years, then he means that Pr(discovery of
cure of AIDS within 5 years) = 95%

It is usually set from intuition, educated guesses, or estimates

Although the subjective view of probability has enjoyed increased

attention over the years, it has not been fully accepted by scientists

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 Conditional probability and Independence

 Conditional Events: If the occurrence of one event has an effect on

the next occurrence of the other event then the two events are
conditional or dependant events.

 The formula for calculating a sample conditional probability is easy to

use:
No.of observation for both event
p(Eve/cond event) =
No.of observations for whichcond.event occurs

P(A ∩ B)
p(A/B) = (5)
P(B)
Example: For the retinopathy data, the conditional probability of
retinopathy, given exposure to light, is:
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 Independent events

Two events, A and B, are independent if the occurrence or

non-occurrence of either of one does not affect the probability of the
occurrence of the other.
Two events A and B are independent if and only if

P(A ∩ B) = P(A) × P(B) (6)

Example: Given that P (A) = 0.4, P (B) = 0.2,
Solution:
Are A and B independent?

P(A ∩ B) = P(A) × P(B)

= 0.4 × 0.2
= 0.08

Hence, A and B are independent

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 Independent events

Example:2 P(C) = 0.5, P (D) = 0.3, P(C∩D) = 0.10.

Are C and D independent?
Solution:

P(C ∩ D) = P(A) × P(D)

= 0.5 × 0.3
= 0.15
∴ P(C ∩ D) 6= 0.10

Hence, C and D are dependent

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 Some probability axioms, postulates and theorems

the probability of an event is a non-negative real number P(event)≥ 0.

P(S)=1
for any two mutual exclusive event P(A∪B) = p(A) + P(B)
If A1 , A2 , , Ak are pair wise mutually exclusive events in S, then :

P(A1 ∪ A2 ∪ A3 ... ∪ Ak ) = P(A1 ) + P(A2 ) + P(A3 ) + .....P(Ak )

If A is an event in a sample space S, and is its complement, then

0
P(A ) = 1 − P(A)

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 axioms, postulates and theorems 2

For any sample space, S , P(φ) = 0

An event which cannot occur (or an impossible event) has probability of 0
for any event probability of even A must be 0≤ P(A) ≤ 1
Example: The probabilities that a student will score an A, B, C, D or F in
a given course are 0.22, 0.32, 0.25, 0.15 and 0.06 respectively. Find the
probability that the student will get:
a grade lower than C
a pass grade
. Solution:
Since the five events are mutually exclusive,
P (failing) = P (D or F) = P (D) + P (F) = 0.15 + 0.06= 0.21
P (passing) = P (A or B or C) = P (A) + P (B) + P(C) = 0.22 +
0.32 + 0.25= 0.79

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 Axioms, postulates and theorems 3

Example: The probability that a person gets affected by disease X is 0.08,

that a person gets affected by disease Y is 0.05, and that a person gets
affected by both diseases is 0.02, in a given community. Then, Find the
probability that a randomly selected person from this community:

i Gets affected by either or both diseases;

ii Gets affected by only one of the diseases.

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 Axioms, postulates and theorems 4

Solution:Let A be the event that a person gets affected by disease X, and

B be the event that a person gets affected by disease Y We are given that
P (A) = 0.08, P (B) = 0.05 and P(A∩B) = 0.02

P(getting either or both) = P(A ∪ B)

= P(A) + P(B) − P(A ∩ B) = 0.08 + 0.05 − 0.02 = 0.011

P(getting only one of the diseases) = P(A ∩ B̄) ∩ (B ∩ Ā)

= P(A ∩ B̄) + P(B ∩ Ā)
BUT = p(only X ) = P(A ∩ B̄) = P(A) − P(A ∩ B) = 0.06
= p(only y ) = P(B ∩ Ā) = P(B) − P(A ∩ B) = 0.03
∴ P(getting only one of the diseases) = 0.06 + 0.03 = 0.09

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 Simple/unconditional conditional probabilities 1

Unconditional Probability
When the size of the total group or grand total (n) serves as the
denominator to calculate a probability, the probability is termed as
unconditional probability.

Example: A study was conducted to investigate the effect of

prolonged exposure to bright light on retinal damage in premature
infants. Eighteen out of 21 premature infants exposed to bright light
developed retinopathy, while 21 of 39 premature infants exposed to
reduced light level developed retinopathy. What is the probability of
developing retinopathy?

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 unconditional conditional probabilities 2

solution:

No. of infant with retinopaty

p(retinopaty ) = (7)
Total number of infant
18 + 21
= (8)
21 + 39
= 0.65 (9)
(10)

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 unconditional conditional probabilities 3

Are probabilities that are based on the knowledge that some other
event has occurred. In this case the subset of the total group is taken
as a denominator

We want to compare the probability of retinopathy, given that the

infant was exposed to bright light, with that the infant was exposed
to reduced light

Exposure to bright-light and exposure to reduced-light are

conditioning events (i.e. events we want to take into account when
calculating conditional probabilities)

Conditional probabilities are denoted by P (A/B) (read as Probability

of A given B) or P (Event/Conditioning event).

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 unconditional conditional probabilities 4

The formula for calculating a sample conditional probability is easy to

use :

No.of observation for both event

p(Eve/cond event) =
No.of observations for whichcond.event occurs

P(A ∩ B)
p(A/B) = , if P(B) > 0 (11)
P(B)

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 unconditional conditional probabilities 5

Example: For the retinopathy data, the conditional probability of

retinopathy, given exposure to light, is:
No.of infants with both event
p(retino/expo Bright.light) =
No.of infants exposure to Bright light
18
= = 0.86
21

No.of infants with both event

p(retino/expos reduce.light) =
No.of infants exposure to reduce light
21
= = 0.54
39
The conditional probabilities suggest that premature infants exposed to
bright light have a higher risk of retinopathy than premature infants
exposed to reduced light.
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 Multiplication Rule of probability 1

The definition of P (A/B) can also be used to derive general

multiplication rule.
If A and B are any two events in a sample space S, then

P(A ∩ B) = P(A) × P(A/B), P(B) 6= 0

P(A ∩ B) = P(B) × P(B/A), P(A) 6= 0

If A, B and C are any three events in a sample space S, such that P

(A) 0 and

P(A ∩ B) 6= 0, P(A ∩ B ∩ C )
= P(A) × P(B/A) × P(c/A ∩ B)

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 conditional probability Example

Example:
Table 1 shows the frequency of cocaine use by gender among adult
cocaine users
Life time frequency Male Female Total of cocaine use
1-19 times 32 7 39
20-99 times 18 20 38
more than 100 times 25 9 34
Total 75 36 111

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 Questions:

1 What is the probability of a person randomly picked is a male?

2 What is the probability of a person randomly picked uses cocaine
more than 100 times?
3 Given that the selected person is male, what is the probability of a
person randomly picked uses cocaine more than 100 times?
4 Given that the person has used cocaine less than 100 times, what is
the probability of being female?
5 What is the probability of a person randomly picked is a male and
uses cocaine more than 100 times? Answer:
Pr(m)=Total adult males/Total adult cocaine users =75/111 =0.68 .
Pr(c¿100)=All adult cocaine users more than 100 times/ Total adult
cocaine users=34/111=0.31.
Pr (c¿100)=25/75=0.33.
Pr(f¡¸100)=(7+20)/36=27/36=0.75.
Pr(m n c¿100)= Pr(m) Pr (c¿100)=75/111 25/75=25/111=0.23.

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