Section 7.

1 - Experiments, Sample Spaces, and Events

• Definition: An experiment is an activity with an observable result.

• Definition: The outcome (sample point) is the result of an experiment.

• Definition: The sample space is the set of all outcomes of an experiment.

• Definition: An event is a subset of the sample space. (Note: An event E is

said to occur whenever E contains the observed outcome.)

• Definition: E and F are mutually exclusive if E ∩ F = ∅.

• Note: All of the set operations (union, intersection, complement) work the
same with events.

• Example 1: Let S = {5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10}, E = {5, 7, 9}, F = {6, 8, 10}, and

G = {7}.
a) Find the event (E ∪ F )

b) Find the event (E ∪ F ) ∩ G

c) Find the event (E ∩ F )

d) Are the events E and F mutually exclusive?

e) Are the events E and F complementary?

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• Example 2: Let’s consider the experiment of flipping a fair coin two times.
a) Determine the sample space.

b) Find the event E where E = {x|x has one or more heads}

c) Find the event F where F = {x|x has more than 2 heads}

d) List all events of this experiment.

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• Example 3: An experiment consists of casting a pair of dice and observing
the number that falls uppermost on each die.
 

 (1,1) (2,1) (3,1) (4,1) (5,1) (6,1) 




 (1,2) (2,2) (3,2) (4,2) (5,2) (6,2) 



(1,3) (2,3) (3,3) (4,3) (5,3) (6,3)
 
S=

 (1,4) (2,4) (3,4) (4,4) (5,4) (6,4) 

(1,5) (2,5) (3,5) (4,5) (5,5) (6,5)

 


 

 
(1,6) (2,6) (3,6) (4,6) (5,6) (6,6)

a) Determine the event that the sum of the numbers falling uppermost is less
than or equal to 6.

b) Determine the event that the number falling uppermost on one die is a 4
and the number falling uppermost on the other die is greater than 4.

• Example 4: The manager of a local bank observes how long it takes a customer
to complete his transactions at the ATM.
a) Describe an appropriate sample space for this experiment.

b) Describe the event that it takes a customer between 2 and 3 minutes to

complete his transactions at the ATM.

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 Section 7.2 - Definition of Probability

• Definition: Suppose we repeat an experiment n times and an event E occurs

m of those times. Then m
n is called the relative frequency of the event E.

• Example 1: Let’s say you flip a coin 100 times and a head occurs 61 times.
What is the relative frequency of the event E = {x|x is heads}?

• Definition: Often, the more we repeat an experiment, the more the relative
frequency approaches a certain value. We call this the empirical probability
of the event.

• Definition: The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1 that

represents the likelihood of the event occuring. The larger the probability, the
more likely the event is to occur.

• Definition: An event which consists of exactly one outcome is called a simple event
of the experiment.

• Example 2: List the simple events associated with each of the given experi-
ments:
a) A nickel and a dime are tossed, and the result of heads or tails is recorded
for each coin.

b) As part of a quality-control procedure, eight circuit boards are checked, and

the number of defectives is recorded.

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• Definition: The table that lists the probability of each simple event in an
experiment is known as the probability distribution.

• Example 3: Metro Telephone Company compiled the accompanying informa-

tion during a service-utilization pertaining to the number of customers using
their Dial-the-Time service from 7 A.M. to 9 A.M. on a certain weekday morn-
ing. Using these data, find the probability distribution associated with the
experiment.
Calls Received per Minute 10 11 12 13 14 15 16
Frequency of Occurrence 6 15 30 3 30 36 0

• Definition: The function which assigns a probability to each of the simple

events is called a probability function. It has the following properties:
1. 0 ≤ P (si ) ≤ 1
2. P (s1 ) + P (s2 ) + · · · + P (sn ) = 1
3. P ({si } ∪ {sj }) = P (si ) + P (sj ) for i 6= j
• Definition: Sample spaces in which the outcomes are equally likely are called
uniform sample spaces. For a uniform sample space S = {s1 , s2 , . . . , sn },
we can assign to the simple events s1 , s2 , . . . , sn the probabilities:
1
P (s1 ) = P (s2 ) = · · · = P (sn ) =
n
• Finding the probability of an event E
1. Determine a sample space S associated with the experiment.
2. Assign probabilities to the simple events of S.
3. If E = {s1 , . . . , sm } where {s1 }, ...{sm } are simple events then
P (E) = P (s1 ) + P (s2 ) + · · · + P (sn )

4. If E is the empty set,∅, then P (E) = 0

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• Example 4: Let S = {s1 , s2 , s3 , s4 , s5 } be the sample space associated with an
experiment having the following probability distribution:

Outcome s1 s2 s3 s4 s5
1 3 6 2 2
Probability 14 14 14 14 14

Find the probability of the event:

a) A = {s1 , s2 , s4 }

b) B = {s1 , s5 }

c) C = S

• Example 5: If a marble is selected at random from a bowl containing three

red, two white, and five black, what is the probability that the marble drawn
is not white?

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 Section 7.3 - Rules of Probability

• Properties:
1. P (E) ≥ 0 for any event E
2. P (S) = 1
3. If E and F are mutually exclusive (that is, E ∩ F = ∅), then
P (E ∪ F ) = P (E) + P (F )

4. P (E ∪ F ) = P (E) + P (F ) − P (E ∩ F )
5. P (E c ) = 1 − P (E)

• Example 1: Let E and F be two events of an experiment with sample space

S. Suppose P (E) = .6, P (F ) = .4, and P (E ∩ F ) = .2. Compute:
a) P (E ∪ F )

b) P (E c )

c) P (F c )

d) P (E c ∩ F c )

e) P (E c ∩ F )

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• Example 2: An experiment consists of selecting a card at random from a
52-card deck. What is the probability that a diamond or a king is drawn?

• Example 3: Determine whether the following statements are true-or-false.

a) There are eight grades in Garfield Elementary School. If a student is selected
at random from the school, then the probability that the student is in the
first grade is 1/8.

b) The sample space associated with an experiment is given by S = {a, b, c},

where P (a) = .3, P (b) = .4, and P (c) = .4

c) If A is a subset of B and P (B) = 0, then P (A) = 0

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• Example 4: Among 500 freshman pursuing a business degree at a university,
320 are enrolled in an Economics course, 225 are enrolled in a Mathematics
course, and 140 are enrolled in both an Economics and a Mathematics course.
What is the probability that a freshman selected at random from this group is
enrolled in:

a) an Economics or Mathematics course?

b) exactly one of these two courses?

c) neither an Economics course nor a Mathematics course?

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 Section 7.4 - Use of Counting Techniques in Probability

• Computing the probability of an event in a uniform sample space:

Let S be a uniform sample space and let E be any event. Then,
n(E)
P (E) =
n(S)
where n(E) is the number of outcomes in E and n(S) is the number of outcomes
in S.

• Example 1: An unbiased coin is tossed six times. What is the probability

that the coin will land heads
a) Exactly three times?

b) At most three times?

c) On the first and the last toss?

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• Example 2: Four marbles are selected at random without replacement from
a bowl containing three white and five blue. Find the probability that two or
three of the marbles are white.

• Example 3: An exam consists of ten true-or-false questions. If a student

guesses at every answer, what is the probability that he or she will answer
exactly six questions correctly?

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• Example 4: Two cards are selected at random without replacement from a
well-shuffled deck of 52 playing cards. Find the probability that two cards of
the same suit are drawn.

• Example 5: Thirty people are selected at random.

a) What is the probability that none of the people in this group have the same
birthday?
b) What is the probability that at least two people in this group have the same
birthday?

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 Section 7.5 - Conditional Probability and Independent Events

• Example 1: A survey is done of people making purchases at a gas station:

buy drink (D) no drink (Dc ) Total

buy gas (G) 20 15 35
c
no gas (G ) 10 5 15
Total 30 20 50

a) What is the probability that a person buys a drink?

b) What is the probability that a person doesn’t buy a drink?

c) What is the probability that a person buys gas and a drink?

d) What is the probability that a person buys gas but not a drink?

e) What is the probability that a person who buys a drink also buys gas?

f ) What is the probability that a person who doesn’t buy a drink buys gas?

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• Definition: If E and F are events in an experiment and P (E) 6= 0, then the
conditional probability that the event F will occur given that the event E
has already occurred is
P (E ∩ F )
P (F |E) =
P (E)

• Definition: The Product Rule is found by rearranging the above formula as

follows:
P (E ∩ F ) = P (E) · P (F |E)

• Example 2: Let’s use a tree diagram to help us understand the product rule:

• Example 3: At a party, 1/3 of the guest are women. Seventy-five percent of

the women wore sandals and 25% of the men wore sandals.

a) What is the probability that a person chosen at random at the party is a

man wearing sandals?

b) What is the probability that a person chosen at random is wearing sandals?

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• Example 4: Consider drawing 3 cards from a standard deck of 52 cards with-
out replacement.

a) What is the probability that the 3 cards are hearts?

b) What is the probability that the third card drawn is a heart given the first
two cards are hearts?

• Definition: If A and B are independent events, then P (A|B) = P (A) and

P (B|A) = P (B). Thus, two events A and B are independent if and only if
P (A ∩ B) = P (A) · P (B)
.

• Example 5: A medical experiment showed the probability that a new medicine

was effective was .75, the probability of a certain side effect was .4, and the
probability of both occuring was .3. Are the events independent?

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 Section 7.6 - Bayes’ Theorem

• Example 1: If we are given information about P (F |E), can we find P (E|F )?

• Definition: The above formula is known as Bayes’ Theorem.

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• Example 2: We are to choose a marble from a cup or a bowl. We flip a coin
to decide whether to choose from the cup or the bowl. The bowl contains 1
red and 2 green marbles. The cup contains 3 red and 2 green marbles. What
is the probability that a marble came from the bowl given that it is red?

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• Example 3: Two cards are drawn in succession without replacement from a
standard deck of 52 cards. What is the probability that the first card is a face
card given that the second card is an ace?

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