PROBABILITY THEORY
KAZIBA Stephen
May 15, 2023
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 1 / 13
1 Probability theory deals with events of chances.
2 An event is a single result of an experiment
3 A set of all possible outcomes of an experiment is called a sample
space or possibility space
4
Number of desired outcomes
Probability of an event =
Number of possible outcomes
5
Number of events
Probability of an event =
Number of sample spaces
6 Probabilities can be expressed as fractions, decimals or percentages
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 2 / 13
7 (a) The probability of event A occurring is written as P(A).
(b) The probability of event A not occurring is written as P( A ) or P( A1 )
.
(c) For any event A, P(A) + P( A ) = 1 or P( A ) = 1 − P(A)
8 (a) The probability of an event lies between 0 and 1
(b) The probability of an impossible event is 0
(c) The probability of a sure event is 1
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 3 / 13
9 The event of ”both A and B occur” is the intersection of events A
and B and is denoted by A ∩ B
10 The event ”atlest one of the events A or B occurs” is the union of the
events A and B and is denoted by A ∪ B
11 Below are the venn diagrams representing relationships between
events A and B
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 4 / 13
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 5 / 13
Example
At HeLP school there are 320 girls and 250 boys.What is the probability of
choosing a boy from the school.
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 6 / 13
Example
A fair coin is thrown once.
(a) Write down its sample space
(b) Find the probability of obtaining:
(i) a head
(ii) a tail
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 7 / 13
Example
A pen is drawn from a box at random containing five red ,three blue and
seven green pens.Find the probability that the pen drawn is
(a) Red
(b) Not red
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 8 / 13
Example
One element is randomly selected from a universal set of 20 elements.Sets
A and B are subsets of the universal set and n(A) = 15,n(B) = 10 and
n(A ∩ B) = 7.If P(A) is the probability of th selected element belonging to
set A,find
• P(A)
• P(A ∩ B)
• P(A0 )
• P(A ∪ B)
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 9 / 13
If A and B are two events such that P(A) = 28 ,P(B) = 4
8 and
P(A ∩ B) = 18 .
(a) P(A ∪ B)
(b) P(A ∪ B)0
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 10 / 13
19 2 4
Events A and B are such that P(A) = 30 ,P(B) = 5 and P(A ∪ B) = 5
.Find
1 P(A ∩ B)
2 P(A0 ∩ B 0 )
3 P(A0 ∩ B)
4 P(A0 ∪ B)
5 P(A ∩ B 0 )
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 11 / 13
Exercise
Two events A and B are such that P(A0 ∩ B) = 3x , P(A ∩ B 0 ) = 2x ,
P(A0 ∩ B 0 ) = x and P(B) = 47 . Using a venn diagram ,find the value of
1 x
2 P(A ∩ B)
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 12 / 13
Two events M and N are such that P(M) = 0.7 ,P(M ∩ N) = 0.45 and
P(M 0 ∩ N 0 ) = 0.18.Find
• P(N 0 )
• P( M or N but not both M and N)
KAZIBA Stephen May 15, 2023 13 / 13
