Probability and statistics

Math 381
Instructor: Dr. Maya Chatila

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Grade Distribution: Midterm:40%, Final: 40%,
Project: 10%, Assignments+ Attendance: 10%.
Class Rules: -Attendance is mandatory, no one
can attend in other section under any
circumstances.
-Midterm 1: Thursday 19/10/2017. No make up
exam will be given and automatically a zero will
be given in case of absence
-Midterm 2: Thursday 16/11/2017.

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Book: Introductory statistics, Neil A.Weiss, 9th
edition
http://202.114.108.237/Download/4ad56511-
0538-47b1-9c39-0aff5c3f6403.pdf

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H.W: -Questions about homework will be discussed
in class.
-No late homework will be accepted.
-Any h.w submitted without the h.w report
will be cancelled.
Office hours: After class or by appointment.
Email is the quickest and easiest way to contact me.
m.chatila@bau.edu.lb

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 P A R T III
CHAPTER 4
Probability Concepts

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 Terminology
Experiment: is any process that can be
repeated in which the results are different
or cannot be predicted with certainty.
Sample space: is the set of all outcomes.
Example: one coin toss
S = {H,T}
Example: three coin tosses
S = {HHH, HTH, HHT, TTT, HTT, THT, TTH, THH}
Example: roll a six-sided dice
S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}

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Sample Space might be discrete or continuous
discrete
finite number of outcomes
continuous
outcomes vary along continuous scale

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 Terminology
Event is an outcome or a set of
outcomes of a random process.
Example: Tossing a coin three times
Event A = getting exactly two heads = {HTH, HHT, THH}
Example: Picking real number X between 1 and 20
Event A = chosen number is at most 8 = {X 8}
Example: Tossing a fair dice
Event A = result is an even number = {2, 4, 6}

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 For convenience, we use letters such as A, B,
C, D, . . . to represent events. In the card-
selection experiment, we might let
A = event the card selected is the king of hearts,
B = event the card selected is a king,
C = event the card selected is a heart, and
D = event the card selected is a face card.

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Probability for Equally Likely Outcomes
Suppose an experiment has N possible
outcomes, all equally likely. An event that can
occur in f ways has probability f/N of occurring:

Probability of an event =

f : Number of ways event can occur
N: Total number of possible outcomes

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Ex1: One Die is Tossed
P(even number) = |2,4,6| / |1,2,3,4,5,6|

Ex2: When two balanced dice are rolled, 36 equally

likely outcomes are possible. Find the probability
that
a. the sum of the dice is 11.
b. both dice come up the same number.
c. the sum of the dice is 1.
d. the sum of the dice is 12 or less.

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 At Least, At Most, and Between
For any numbers x and y:
The phrase at least x means greater than or
equal to x,
The phrase at most x means less than or
equal to x,
The phrase between x and y means greater
than but less than y.

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Ex3: Suppose a fun size bag of M&Ms
contains 9 brown candies, 6 yellow candies,
7 red candies, 4 orange candies, 2 blue
candies, and 2 green candies. Suppose that
a candy is randomly selected.
(a) What is the probability that it is brown?
(b) What is the probability that it is blue?

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Ex 4: Housing Units. The U.S. Census Bureau publishes data on housing units
in American Housing Survey for the United States. The following table
provides a frequency distribution for the number of rooms in U.S. housing
units. The frequencies are
in thousands.
Rooms No. of units
1 637
2 1,399
3 10,941
4 22,774
5 28,619
6 25,325
7 15,284
8+ 19,399
A U.S. housing unit is selected at random. Find the probability that the
housing unit obtained has
a. four rooms. b. more than four rooms.
c. one or two rooms. d. fewer than one room.
e. one or more rooms.

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Combinations of Events (Relationships
Among Events)
The complement Ac of an event A is the event
that A does not occur
The union of two events A and B is the event
that either A or B or both occurs
The intersection of two events A and B is the
event that both A and B occur
Event A Complement of A Union of A and B Intersection of A and B

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Ex5: A frequency distribution for the ages of 40 students
in a statistics class is presented below. One student is
selected at random. Let
A = event the student selected is under 21,
B = event the student selected is over 30,
C = event the student selected is in his or her 20s, and
D = event the student selected is over 18.
Determine the following events.
a. (not D) b. (A & D) c. (A or D) d. (B or C)

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 Two events are called disjoint or mutually exclusive
if they can not happen at the same time
Events A and B are disjoint means that the intersection of
A and B is empty.
Example: coin is tossed twice
S = {HH,TH,HT,TT}
Events A={HH} and B={TT} are disjoint
Events A={HH,HT} and B = {HH} are not disjoint

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 Exercises
1. Consider the sample space:
S = {copper, sodium, nitrogen, potassium, uranium,
oxygen , zinc}
And the events:
A= { copper, sodium, zinc}
B= {sodium, nitrogen, potassium}
C= {oxygen}
List the elements of the following events:
, , ( ) , , ( ) ,
C.
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 Exercises
2. Consider the sample space: S = {x/0<x<12}
And the events: M= { x/1<x<9} and N= {x/0<x<5}
Find: , , .

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 Properties
The special addition rule states for mutually exclusive
events, the probability that one or another of the events
occurs equals the sum of the individual probabilities. that
is,
P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B).
The General Addition Rule: For events that are not
mutually exclusive, we must use the general addition
rule.
P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) P(A & B).
The Complementation Rule
P(Ac) = 1 - P(A)
Note:
P(A)= P(A )+ P(AB)

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Ex: Playing Cards Consider again the experiment
of selecting one card at random
from a deck of 52 playing cards. Find the
probability that the card selected is either
a spade or a face card
a. without using the general addition rule.
b. by using the general addition rule.

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Ex: Records for one year show that 76.2% of the
people arrested were male, 15.3% were
under 18 years of age, and 10.8% were males
under 18 years of age. If a person arrested that
year is selected at random, what is the
probability that that person is either male or
under 18?

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 Homework
p.151 # 4.19 , 4.22, 4.38, 4.48, 4.50

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 Conditional Probability

The probability that event B occurs given that

event A occurs is called a conditional
probability. It is denoted P (B |A), which is read
the probability of B given A. We call A the
given event.

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Ex: Rolling a Die When a balanced die is rolled
once, six equally likely outcomes are
Possible. Let
F = event a 5 is rolled, and
O = event the die comes up odd.
Determine the following probabilities:
a. P(F), the probability that a 5 is rolled.
b. P(F | O), the conditional probability that a 5 is
rolled, given that the die comes up odd.
c. P(O | (not F))

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 The Conditional Probability Rule

In the previous example, we computed

conditional probabilities directly, meaning that
we first obtained the new sample space
determined by the given event and then, using
the new sample space, we calculated
probabilities in the usual manner.
Sometimes we cannot determine conditional
probabilities directly. We obtain a formula for
doing so.

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 Conditional Probability
Ex: imperfect diagnostic test for a disease
Disease + Disease - Total
Test + 30 10 40
Test - 10 50 60
Total 40 60 100

What is probability that a person has the disease?

Answer: 40/100 = 0.4
What is the probability that a person has the
disease given that they tested positive?
More Complicated !

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 Definition: Conditional Probability
Let E and F be two dependent events in sample space.
The conditional probability that event E occurs given
that event F has occurred is:
P( E F )
P( E | F )
P( F )
Ex: probability of disease given test positive
P(disease +| test +) = P(disease + and test +) / P(test +) = (30/100)/(40/100) =.75

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Ex: Coin Tossing. A balanced dime is tossed twice.
The four possible equally likely outcomes are HH,
HT, TH, TT. Let
A = event the first toss is head,
B = event the second toss is head, and
C = event at least one toss is head.
Determine the following probabilities:
a. P(B) b. P(B | A) c. P(B |C)
d. P(C) e. P(C | A) f. P(C | (not B))

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Ex : A math teacher gave her class two tests.
25% of the class passed both tests and 42% of
the class passed the first test. What percent of
those who passed the first test also passed the
second test?

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 The General Multiplication Rule
The General Multiplication Rule :If A and B
are any two events, then
P(A & B) = P(A) * P(B | A).

Ex: For the 110th Congress, 18.7% of the

members are senators and 49% of the senators
are Democrats. What is the probability that a
randomly selected member of the 110th
Congress is a Democratic senator?
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Ex: The table below shows the gender frequency of a class of
40 students
Male 17
Female 23
Two students are selected at random from the class. The
sampling is without replacement.
Find the probability that the first student selected is female
and the second is male.
Let F1 = event the first student obtained is female, and
M2 = event the second student obtained is male.
We want to determine P(F1& M2).
23 17
P(F1 & M2) = P(F1) P(M2 | F1) = . = 0.251.
40 39

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 Independent Events
Independent Events: Event B is said to be
independent of event A if
P(B | A) = P(B).
The Special Multiplication Rule: If A and B are
independent events, then
P(A & B) = P(A) P(B)
and conversely, if P(A & B) = P(A) P(B), then A
and B are independent events.
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We can decide whether event A and event B are
independent by using either of two methods.
we can determine whether
P(B | A) = P(B)
or
P(A & B) = P(A) P(B).

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Note: The terms mutually exclusive and
independent refer to different concepts.
Mutually exclusive events are those that cannot
occur simultaneously; independent events are
those for which the occurrence of some does
not affect the probabilities of the others
occurring.
In fact, two events cannot be both mutually
exclusive and independent.

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 Exercises
1. Let A and B be events such that p(A)=1/4,
p(A ) =1/3. Find p(B) if:
a) A and B are independent.
b) A and B are mutually exclusive.
c) A is a subset of B.
2. Calculate P(A ) if P(A)=0.4, P(B)=0.45 and

P(A )=0.1.
3. What is the probability that neither A nor B

occur if P()=0.6 and P( )=0.5.
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 Exercises
1.Let A and B be events such that P(A)=1/2,
P(B)=1/3 and P(A )=7/12. Find P(A/B), P(A/),
and P(/ ).
P(/B)
2. In a class of 100 students, 54 studied math, 69
studied English and 35 studied both math and
English. If one of these students is selected at
random, find the probability that the student:
a) Took either math or English.
b) Took English but not math.
c) Took both subjects
d) Took neither math nor English.

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