King Khalid University

College of Sciences and Arts of

Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 5 - PROBABILITY

Dr. Moheddine Imsatfia

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 5 - PROBABILITY

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

●
An experiment is any operation or procedure whose
outcomes cannot be predicted with certainty.
●
The set of all possible outcomes for an experiment is
called the sample space for the experiment.

3 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

Example 1:
●
The single toss of a coin is an
experiment whose outcomes cannot
be predicted with certainty.
●
The sample space consists of two outcomes, heads
or tails.
●
The letter S is used to represent the sample space
and may be represented as S = ( H , T).

4 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

Example 2:
●
The single toss of a die is an experiment resulting in
one of six outcomes.
●
S may be represented as ( 1 , 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6 ).

5 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

Example 3:
●
When a card is selected from
a standard deck, 52 outcomes
are possible.
●
When a roulette wheel is spun, the outcome cannot
be predicted with certainty.

6 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

Example 4:
●
When a quality control
technician selects an item
for inspection from a production
line, it may be classified as defective or non-defective
●
The sample space may be represented by
S = (D, N).

7 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

Example 5:
●
When the blood type
of a patient is determined,
the sample space may
be represented as
S = ( A , AB, B, O )

8 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EXPERIMENT, OUTCOMES, AND SAMPLE SPACE

●
The experiments discussed in the previous examples
are rather simple experiments and the descriptions of
the sample spaces are straightforward.

●
More complicated experiments are discussed in the
following section and techniques such as tree
diagrams are utilized to describe the sample space for
these experiments.

9 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
In a tree diagram, each outcome of an experiment is
represented as a branch of a geometric figure called a
tree.

11 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
Example 6: the figure shows a tree diagram for the
experiment of tossing a coin twice.
●
The tree has four branches.
●
Each branch is an outcome
for the experiment.
●
If the experiment is expanded to three tosses, the
branches are simply continued with H or T added to
the end of each branch.

12 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
Example 6:
●
This would result in the eight outcomes:
HHH, HHT, HTH, HTT, THH, THT, TTH, and TTT.
●
This technique could be continued systematically to
give the outcomes for n tosses of a coin.
●
Notice that 2 tosses has 4 outcomes and 3 tosses has
8 outcomes.
●
N tosses has 2N possible outcomes.

13 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
The counting rule for a two-step experiment states
that if the first step can result in any one of n1
outcomes, and the second step in any one of n2
outcomes, then the experiment can result in (n1)( n2)
outcomes.
● If a third step is added with n3 outcomes, then the
experiment can result in (n1)(n2)(n3) outcomes. actually
represent the outcomes.

14 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
The counting rule applies to an experiment consisting of any
number of steps.
●
If the counting rule is applied to Example 6, we see that for two
tosses of a coin, n1 = 2, n2 = 2, and the number of outcomes for the
experiment is 2 x 2 = 4.
●
For three tosses, there are 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 outcomes and so forth.
●
The counting rule may be used to figure the number of outcomes
of an experiment and then a tree diagram may be used to actually
represent the outcomes.

15 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
Example 7:
●
For the experiment of rolling a pair of dice, the first die may be
any of six numbers and the second die may be any one of six
numbers.
●
According to the counting rule, there are 6 x 6 = 36 outcomes.
●
The outcomes may be represented by a tree having 36 branches.

16 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
Example 7:
●
The sample space may also be represented by a two-dimensional
plot as shown in the following figure:

17 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

TREE DIAGRAMS AND THE COUNTING RULE

●
Example 8:
●
An experiment consists of observing the blood types for five
randomly selected individuals.
●
Each of the five will have one of four blood types A, B, AB, or 0.
●
Using the counting rule, we see that the experiment has
4 x 4 x 4 x 4 x 4 = 1024 possible outcomes.
●
In this case constructing a tree diagram would be difficult.

18 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
An event is a subset of the sample space consisting of at least
one outcome from the sample space.
●
If the event consists of exactly one outcome, it is called a
simple event.
●
If an event consists of more than one outcome, it is called a
compound event.

20 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
Example 9:
●
A quality control technician selects two computer mother
boards and classifies each as defective or non-defective
●
The sample space may be represented as
S = {NN, ND, DN, DD}, where D represents a defective unit and
N represents a non-defective unit.
●
Let A represent the event that neither unit is defective and let
B represent the event that at least one of the units is
defective.

21 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
Example 9:
●
A = { NN} is a simple event
●
And B = {ND, DN, DD} is a compound event.

22 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
Example 9:
●
The following figure is a Venn Diagram representation of the
sample space S and the events A and B.
●
In a Venn diagram, the sample space is usually represented by a
rectangle and events are represented by circles within the
rectangle.

23 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
Example 10:
●
For the experiment described in Example 8, there are 1,024 different
outcomes for the blood types of the five individuals.
●
The compound event that all five have the same blood type is
composed of the following four outcomes: (A, A, A, A, A), (B, B, B, B,
B), (AB, AB, AB, AB, AB), and (O, O, O, O, O).
●
The simple event that all five have blood type O would be the outcome
(O, O, O, O , O) .

24 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

PROBABILITY
EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
Probability is a measure of the likelihood of the occurrence of
some event.
●
There are several different definitions of probability.
●
Three definitions are discussed in the next section.
●
The particular definition that is utilized depends upon the
nature of the event under consideration. However, all the
definitions satisfy the following two specific properties and obey
the rules of probability developed later in this chapter.

26 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

●
The probability of any event E is represented by the symbol
P(E) and the symbol is read as “P of E” or as “the probability of
event E.”

●
P(E) is a real number between zero and one as indicated in the
following inequality:

●
The sum of the probabilities for all the simple events of an
experiment must equal one.

27 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

EVENTS, SIMPLE EVENTS, AND COMPOUND EVENTS

● That is, if E1 , E2 , . . . , En ,are the simple events for an

experiment, then the following equality must be true:

●
It is also sometimes expressed as in formula
which states that the probability that some outcome in the
sample space will occur is one.

28 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE

PROBABILITY DEFINITIONS
CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

●
The classical definition of probability is appropriate when all
outcome‘s of an experiment are equally likely.
●
For an experiment consisting of n outcomes, the classical
definition of probability assigns probability 1/n to each outcome
or simple event.
●
For an event E consisting of k outcomes, the n probability of
event E is given by the following formula : P(E) = k / n

30 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

Example 11:
●
To find the probability of the event A that the sum of the
numbers on the faces of a pair of dice equals seven when a pair
of dice is rolled, consider the sample space shown in the
following figure:
●
The event A is shown as a
rectangular box in the
sample space.

31 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

Example 11:
●
The outcomes in A are as follows
A = {(1,6),(2,5),(3,4),(4, 3),(5,2),(6,1)} .
●
Since A contains six of the
thirty-six equally likely outcomes
for the experiment, the probability
of event A is 6/36

32 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

●
The classical definition of probability is not always appropriate
in computing probabilities of events.
●
If a coin is bent, heads and tails are not equally likely
outcomes.
●
If a die has been loaded, each of the six faces do not have
probability of occurrence equal to 1/6.

33 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

●
For experiments not having equally likely outcomes, the
relative frequercy definition of probability is appropriate.
●
The relative frequency definition of probability states that if an
experiment is performed n times, and if event E occurs f times,
then the probability of event E is given by the following formula:
P(E) = f / n

34 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

Example 12:
●
A bent coin is tossed 50 times and a head appears on 35 of the
tosses.
●
The relative frequency definition of probability assigns the
probability 35/50 = .70 to the event that a head occurs when
this coin is tossed.
●
A loaded die is tossed 75 times and the face “6” appears 15
times in the 75 tosses. The relative frequency definition of
probability assigns the probability 15/75 = .20 to the event that
the face “6” will appear when this die is tossed.

35 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

●
There are many circumstances where neither the classical
definition nor the relative frequency definition of probability is
applicable. The subjective definition of probability utilizes
intuition, experience, and collective wisdom to assign a degree
of belief that an event will occur.
●
This method of assigning probabilities allows for several
different assignments of probability to a given event.

36 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

CLASSICAL, RELATIVE FREQUENCY, AND SUBJECTIVE PROBABILITY
DEFINITIONS

Example 13:
●
A military planner states that the probability of nuclear war in
the next year is 1 %.
●
The individual is assigning a subjective probability of .01 to the
probability of the event “nuclear war in the next year.”
●
This event does not lend itself to either the classical definition
or the relative frequency definition of probability .

37 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
Table below classifies the 500 members of a police department
according to their minority status as well as their promotional
status during the past year.
●
One hundred of the individuals were classified as being a minority
and seventy were promoted during the past year.

39 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
The probability that a randomly selected individual from the police
department is a minority is 100/500 = ,20 and the probability that
a randomly selected person was promoted during the past year is
70/500 = .14 dividing each entry in the Table by 500.

40 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
The four probabilities in the center of the following
table: .70, .16, .10, and .04, are called joint probabilities.
●
The four probabilities in the margin of the table, .80, .20, .86,
and .14, are called marginal probabilities.

41 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
The joint probabilities concerning the selected police officer may
be described as follows:
●
.70 = the probability that the selected officer is not a minority and was
not promoted
●
. 16 = the probability that the selected officer is a minority and was not
promoted
●
.10 = the probability that the selected officer is not a minority and was
promoted
●
.04 = the probability that the selected officer is a minority and was
promoted

42 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
The marginal probabilities concerning the selected police officer
may be described as follows:
●
.80 = the probability that the selected officer is not a minority
●
.20 = the probability that the selected officer is a minority
●
.86 = the probability that the selected officer was not promoted
during the last year
●
.14 = the probability that the selected officer was promoted
during the last year

43 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
In addition to the joint and marginal probabilities discussed above,
another important concept is that of a conditional probability.
●
If it is known that the selected police officer is a minority, then the
conditional probability of promotion during the past year is
20/100= .20, since 100 of the police officers were classified as
minority and 20 of those were promoted.
●
This same probability may be obtained from the second table by
using the ratio 04/20 = .20.

44 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

●
The formula for the conditional probability of the occurrence of
event A given that event B is known ta have occurred for some
experiment is represented by P(A I B) and is the ratio of the joint
probability of A and B divided by the probability of B.
●
The following formula is used to compute a conditional probability.

45 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MARGINAL AND CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES

Example 14:
●
For the experiment of selecting one police officer at random from those
first table, define event A to be the event that the individual was
promoted last year and define event B to be the event that the individual
is a minority.
●
The joint probability of A and B is expressed as P(A and B)=.04.
●
The marginal probabilities of A and B are expressed as P(A)=.14 and
P(B) = .20.
●
The conditional probability of A given B is

46 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

●
Two or more events are said to be mutually exclusive if the
events do not have any outcomes in common. They are events
that cannot occur together.
●
If A and B are mutually exclusive events then the joint probability of
A and B equals zero, that is, P(A and B) = 0.
●
A Venn diagram representation of two mutually exclusive events is
shown as folllows.

48 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

Example 15:
●
An experiment consists in observing the gender of two randomly
selected individuals.
●
The event, A, that both individuals are male and the event, B, that
both individuals are female are mutually exclusive since if both are
male, then both cannot be female and
P(A and B) = 0.

49 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE EVENTS

Example 16:
●
Let event A be the event that an employee at a large company is a
white collar worker and let B be the event that an employee is a
blue collar worker.
●
Then A and B are mutually exclusive since an employee cannot be
both a blue collar worker and a white collar worker and
P(A and B) = 0.

50 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT EVENTS

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT EVENTS

●
If the knowledge that some event B has occurred influences the
probability of the occurrence of another event A, then A and B are
said to be dependent events.
●
If knowing that event B has occurred does not affect the
probability of the occurrence of event A, then A and B are said to
be independent events.
●
Two events are independent if the following equation is satisfied.
Otherwise the events are dependent. P(A I B) = P(A)

52 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT EVENTS

●
The event of having a criminal record and the event of not having
a father in the home are dependent events.
●
The events of being a diabetic and having a family history of
diabetes are dependent events, since diabetes is an inheritable
disease.

53 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

DEPENDENT AND INDEPENDENT EVENTS

Example 17:
●
For the experiment of drawing one card from a standard deck of 52 cards, let A
be the event that a club is selected, let B be the event that a face card (jack,
queen, or king) is drawn, and let C be the event that a jack is drawn.
●
Then A and B are independent events since
P(A) = 13/52 = .25 and P(A I B) = 3/12 = .25.
●
P(A I B ) = 3/12 = .25 since there are 12 face cards and 3 of them are clubs.
●
The events B and C are dependent events since P(C) = 4/52 = .077 and P(C I B )
= 4/12 = .333 , since there are 12 face cards and 4 of them are jacks.

54 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

King Khalid University
College of Sciences and Arts of
Tanumah
Department of Computer Science

217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

Topic 4 - REGRESSION AND CORRELATION

COMPLEMENTARY EVENTS
COMPLEMENTARY EVENTS

●
To every event A, there corresponds another event Ac, called the
complement of A and consisting of all other outcomes in the
sample space not in event A.
●
The word not is used to describe the complement of an event.
●
The complement of selecting a red card is not selecting a red card.
The complement of being a smoker is not being a smoker.
●
Since an event and its complement must account for all the
outcomes of an experiment, their probabilities must add up to one.
If A and Ac are complementary events then the following equation
must be true : P(A) + P(Ac ) = 1

56 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

COMPLEMENTARY EVENTS

Example 18:
●
Approximately 2% of the American population is diabetic.
●
The probability that a randomly chosen American is not diabetic
is .98, since P(A) = .02, where A is the event of being diabetic,
and .02 + P(Ac) = 1.
●
Solving for P(Ac) we get P(Ac) = 1 - .02 = .98.

57 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming

COMPLEMENTARY EVENTS

●
Complementary events are always mutually exclusive events but
mutually exclusive events are not always complementary events.
●
The events of drawing a club and drawing a diamond from a
standard deck of cards are mutually exclusive, but they are not
complementary events.

58 Topic 5 - Probability 217CSM-3: Statistical Programming