# probability Definition and Topics - 299 Discussions

Probability is the branch of mathematics concerning numerical descriptions of how likely an event is to occur, or how likely it is that a proposition is true. The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1, where, roughly speaking, 0 indicates impossibility of the event and 1 indicates certainty. The higher the probability of an event, the more likely it is that the event will occur. A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin. Since the coin is fair, the two outcomes ("heads" and "tails") are both equally probable; the probability of "heads" equals the probability of "tails"; and since no other outcomes are possible, the probability of either "heads" or "tails" is 1/2 (which could also be written as 0.5 or 50%).
These concepts have been given an axiomatic mathematical formalization in probability theory, which is used widely in areas of study such as statistics, mathematics, science, finance, gambling, artificial intelligence, machine learning, computer science, game theory, and philosophy to, for example, draw inferences about the expected frequency of events. Probability theory is also used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems.

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1. ### Find the probability of different scenarios

Summary:: Bag A contains 1 white straw, 2 red straws and 2 green straws. Bag B contains 2 white straws, 2 red straws and 1 green straw. One straw is drawn at random from each bag. Find the probabilities that (a) the two straws drawn are of the same colour; (b) one straw is red and the other...

Would the two masks together be 126% effective?
3. ### Prob/Stats Books on Combinatorics, Permutations and Probability

Hello! I am looking for textbooks to relearn Combinatorics, Permutations Combinations and Probability and also Matrix algebra( decomposition, etc). I had done these many years ago and the course/books provided to me at that time werent that great. So I want to relearn this with a more intiutive...
4. ### I Finding bias of the coin from noise corrupted signals

Suppose there are two persons A and B such that both have a personal communication system which can transmit and receive bits. B has a biased coin whose bias is not known. A asks B to toss the coin 2000 times, send a 0 when a tail comes up and a 1 when a head comes up. It is known that whatever...
5. ### Combinatorics: calculating Oz Lotto odds for divisions

In Oz Lotto, balls are numbered 1 to 45. Nine are selected, seven of which are winning numbers and two being supplementary numbers. Players select seven numbers. The odds of winning can be found here: https://www.lottoland.com.au/magazine/oz-lotto-everything-there-is-to-know.html I tried...
6. ### Variance of a point chosen at random on the circumference of a circle

Hi, I was looking at this problem and just having a go at it. Question: Let us randomly generate points ##(x,y)## on the circumference of a circle (two dimensions). (a) What is ##\text{Var}(x)##? (b) What if you randomly generate points on the surface of a sphere instead? Attempt: In terms of...
7. ### Prob/Stats Looking for a probability and statistics textbook

I want to learn some probability & statistics on my own. I am well versed in Calc 1-3 , elementary ODEs and very little linear algebra. I want a comprehensive , introductory textbook which is NOT COOKBOOK STYLE. I might be self studying AP statistics next term so if the book covers everything I...
8. ### How many combinations? (High school math problem)

Summary:: Year 11 Extension 1 Math problem (Australia) How many combinations can be made from a 4 digit pin code if we can only use two numbers to form our pin code, and we MUST use 2 distinct numbers. E.g. 1112, 4334, 9944, 3232. But NOT 1111, 2113, 0992 etc. We're using the numbers 0-9 and...

10. ### Statistics: Prove following theorem by expressing all the binomial coefficients in terms of factorials

I really don't know what to do for this problem. I looked at similar threads but couldn't seem to grasp the idea of it. I would like help on how to start.
11. ### I Find P(X+Y>1/2) for given joint density function

Hey everybody, :smile: I have a joint density of the random variables ##X## and ##Y## given and want to find out ##P(X+Y>1/2)##. The joint density is as follows: $$f_{XY}(x,y) = \begin{cases}\frac{1}{y}, &0<x<y,0<y<1 \\ 0, &else \end{cases}$$ To get a view of this I created a plot: As...
12. ### Proof of a formula with two geometric random variables

The image above is the problem and the image below is the solution I have tried but failed.
13. ### Bernoulli and Bayesian probabilities

Summary:: Hello there, I'm a mechanical engineer pursuing my graduate degree and I'm taking a class on machine learning. Coding is a skill of mine, but statistics is not... anyway, I have a homework problem on Bernoulli and Bayesian probabilities. I believe I've done the first few parts...
14. ### I Why P(A), and not P(A)(1-P(A))

The summary says it all: why is the probability of an event not calculated by the probability that it is the event AND that it is not any other? Sounds silly, and I am certain the explanation is simple, but I don't see it.
15. ### I Two vectors and two perpendicular lines

In ##\mathbb{R}^2##, there are two lines passing through the origin that are perpendicular to each other. The orientation of one of the lines with respect to ##x##-axis is ##\psi \in [0, \pi]##, where ##\psi## is uniformly distributed in ##[0, \pi]##. Also, there are two vectors in...
16. ### I Conditional distribution of geometric series

Can someone help me on this question? I'm finding a very strange probability distribution. Question: Suppose that x_1 and x_2 are independent with x_1 ~ geometric(p) and x_2 ~ geometric (1-p). That's x_1 has geometric distribution with parameter p and x_2 has geometric distribution with...
17. ### I Compatibility of MWI with probability of outcomes

Can MWI account for the probabilities of outcomes? If MWI says all outcomes are realized, is the probability that an outcome occurs then not 100%? How is this explained with the entanglement of the measured object and the measurement apparatus?
18. ### I Bernoulli Trials Homework Problem

this is the answer Is this right?
19. ### B Fun with (im)probabilities

Hi folks - I need some help with a tricky probability. Here's the situation: Let's say there are 4M internet users in Age Group A. (The total set) Of those 4M, there are 1,000 users who play a specific sport. Those 1,000 are spread evenly over 125 teams, so 8 players each. 1. What's the...
20. ### Tricky problem from Probability

I decided to take cases.For example-:A gets one 1 duck and B gets 2,3,4,...,51.So i can write this as 50C1(1/2)5051C2(1/2)51+50C1(1/2)5051C3(1/2)51+... But i was unable to solve it further. please help.
21. ### B Poisson Distribution - Selecting cookies that are indistinguishable

Here's the problem: A chef made 500 cookies randomly mixed with 1000 nuts including 600 almonds and 400 hazelnuts in which each nut is the same size. Suppose the number of pieces of nuts in a piece of cookie follows a Poisson distribution. (a) Suppose cookies are randomly selected one-by-one...
22. ### Measurements of GHZ state

Here's what I think I understand: First off, the GHZ state ##|GHZ \rangle = \frac {|000\rangle+|111\rangle} {\sqrt 2}##, and ##\sigma_x## and ##\sigma_y## are the usual Pauli matrices, so the four operators are easy to calculate in Matlab. I'm thinking the expectation values of each operator...
23. ### Transition Probability

I set hN(1)hN(1) equal to cNcN, but I'm confused on how I'd be able to solve it and because of that I was not able to conclude that 0 is recurrent when qx/px = infinity
24. ### On the width of the kinetic energy distribution of a gas

In these lecture notes about statistical mechanics, page ##10##, we can see the graph below. It represents the distribution (probability density function) of the kinetic energy ##E## (a random variable) of all the gas particles (i.e., ##E=\sum_{i}^{N} E_{i}##, where ##E_{i}## (also a random...
25. ### B Conditional Probability

1. Definition If E and F are two events associated with the same sample space of a random experment, the conditional probability of the event E given that F has occurred, i.e. P(E|F) is given by P(E|F) = (E∩F)/P(F) (P≠0) 2. Properties of conditional probability Let E and F be events of...

27. ### Calculating general normal random probability

a) P(X<18) = (18-20)/sqrt25 =-2/5 =-0.4 then you use the standard normal table and find that; P(X<18)=0.3446 b) P(X>27) = (27-20)/5 = 7/5 = 1.4 P(Z>1.4) =P(Z<-1.4) =0.0808 C) =(13<X<23) =13-20/5 , 23-20/5 =-7/5 , 3/5 =-1.4 , 0.6 P(Z<0.6)-P(Z<-1.4) =0.7257-0.0808 =0.6449
28. ### I Are these events independent?

Hello everyone. Let us consider 3 events A,B,C such that: $$P((A \cap B )\cup C)=P(A)*P(B)*P(C)$$ Notice that the second term is a union and not an intersection. Are they independent? And what if the assumption was: $$P(A \cap( B \cup C))=P(A)*P(B)*P(C)$$? I know that the independence condition...
29. ### I How to understand this property of Geometric Distribution

There is a property to geometric distribution, $$\text{Geometric distribution } Pr(x=n+k|x>n)=P(k)$$. I understand it in such a way: ##X## is independent, that's to say after there are ##(n+k-1)## successive failures, ##k## additional trials performed afterward won't be impacted, so these ##k##...
30. ### B LoLN and probability

Does an ensemble of measurements yielding outcome A or B yield an approximation to the probability of A and B, or is such an ensemble of measurements something totally different from probability?