Chapter 2 - Introduction to Probability

event

a collection of particular sample points

sample point

another word for experimental outcome

experiment

any process that generates well-defined outcomes

relative frequency method

assigning probabilities based on experimentation or historical data

subjective method

assigning probabilities based on judgement

classical method

assigning probabilities based on the assumption of equally likely outcomes

4 basic probability relationships:

complement of an event union of two events intersection of two events mutually exclusive events

independent events

if the probability of event A is not changed by the existence of event B, we would say that events A and B are independent

complement

the complement of event A is defined to be the event consisting of all sample points that are not in A

intersection of two events

the intersection of events A and B is the set of all sample points that are in both A and B

conditional probability

the probability of an event given that another event has occurred is called a conditional probability

sample space

the set of all sample points for an experiment

union of two events

the union of events A and B is the event containing all sample points that are in A or B or both

mutually exclusive events

two events are said to be mutually exclusive if the events have no sample points in common....in other words two events are mutually exclusive if, when one event occurs, the other cannot occur