Some Basic Relationships of

Probability

Complement of an Event:
Definition: The complement of an event A is the set of all outcomes in the sample space that are not
included in the outcomes of event A. The complement of event A is represented by ̅ (read as A bar).
The complement of event A is sometimes written as or, in other .

Rule: Given the probability of an event, the probability of its complement can be found by subtracting
the given probability from 1.

Example 1: A spinner has 4 equal sectors colored yellow, blue, green and red. What is the probability of
landing on a sector that is not red after spinning this spinner?

Sample Space: {yellow, blue, green, red}

Probability:

P (not red) = 1 - P(red) = 1 - 1/4

=¾
 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
Example 2: A single card is chosen at random from a standard deck of 52 playing cards. What is the
probability of choosing a card that is not a king?

P(not king) = 1 - P(king) = 1 - 4 /52 = 48/52

= 12/13

SUMMARY: The probability of an event is the measure of the chance that the event will occur as a result
of the experiment. The probability of an event A, symbolized by P(A), is a number between 0 and 1,
inclusive, that measures the likelihood of an event in the following way:

 If P(A) > P(B) then event A is more likely to occur than event B.
 If P(A) = P(B) then events A and B are equally likely to occur.
 If event A is impossible, then P(A) = 0.
 If event A is certain, then P(A) = 1.
 The complement of event A is ̅. P( ̅.) = 1 - P(A)

Addition Law:
The addition law is helpful when we are interested in knowing the probability that at least one of two
events will occur. That is, with events A and B we are interested in knowing the probability that event A
or event B occurs or both events occur.

Before going to the addition law, we must take note of the two concepts related to the combination of
events: the union of events and the intersection of events. Given two events A and B, the union of A
and B is defined as the event containing all outcomes belonging to A or B or both. The union of A and B
is denoted by .
 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
The definition of the intersection of A and B is the event containing the outcomes that belong to both A
and B. The intersection of A and B is denoted by .

The addition law provides a way to compute the probability that event A or event B occurs or both
events occur. In other words, the addition law is used to compute the probability of the union of two
events. The addition law is written as follows:

NOTE: The addition law can be extended beyond two events. For example, the addition law for three
events A, B, and C is:

Similar logic can be used to derive the expressions for the addition law for more than three events.

Addition Rule 1: When two events, A and B, are mutually exclusive, the probability that A or B will occur
is the sum of the probability of each event.

P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B)

 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
Example 1: A single 6-sided die is rolled. What is the probability of rolling a 2 or a 5?
Probabilities:
P(2) = 1/6
P(5) = 1/6
P(2 or 5) = P(2) +P(5) = 1/6 + 1/6 = 2/6
= 1/3

Example 2: A glass jar contains 1 red, 3 green, 2 blue, and 4 yellow marbles. If a single marble is chosen
at random from the jar, what is the probability that it is yellow or green?

Probabilities:

P(yellow) = 4/10
P(green) = 3/10
P(yellow or green) = P(yellow) +P(green) = 4/10 + 3/10
= 7/10

Additional Rule 2: When two events, A and B, are non-mutually exclusive, the probability that A or B will
occur is:
P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A and B)

In the rule above, P(A and B) refers to the overlap of the two events.
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Probability
Example 1: In a math class of 30 students, 17 are boys and 13 are girls. On a unit test, 4 boys and 5 girls
made an A grade. If a student is chosen at random from the class, what is the probability of choosing a
girl or an A student?

Probabilities: P(girl or A) = P(girl) + P(A) - P(girl and A)

= 13/30 + 9/30 - 5/30
= 17/30

Example 2: On New Year's Eve, the probability of a person having a car accident is 0.09. The probability
of a person driving while intoxicated is 0.32 and probability of a person having a car accident while
intoxicated is 0.15. What is the probability of a person driving while intoxicated or having a car accident?

Probabilities:

P(intoxicated or accident) = P(intoxicated) + P(accident) - P(intoxicated and accident)

= 0.32 + 0.09 - 0.15
= 0.26

Summary: To find the probability of event A or B, we must first determine whether the events are mutually
exclusive or non-mutually exclusive. Then we can apply the appropriate Addition Rule:

Addition Rule 1: When two events, A and B, are mutually exclusive, the probability that A or B will occur is the
sum of the probability of each event.

P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B)

 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
Addition Rule 2: When two events, A and B, are non-mutually exclusive, there is some overlap between
these events. The probability that A or B will occur is the sum of the probability of each event, minus the
probability of the overlap.

P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A and B)

Conditional Probability:
Conditional probability is the probability of one event occurring with some relationship to one or more
other events. For example:
 Event A is that it is raining outside, and it has a 0.3 (30%) chance of raining today.
 Event B is that you will need to go outside, and that has a probability of 0.5 (50%).
A conditional probability would look at these two events in relationship with one another, such as the
probability that it is both raining and you will need to go outside.

Example 1: A jar contains black and white marbles. Two marbles are chosen without replacement. The
probability of selecting a black marble and then a white marble is 0.34, and the probability of selecting a
black marble on the first draw is 0.47. What is the probability of selecting a white marble on the second
draw, given that the first marble drawn was black?

P(Black and White)

P(White|Black) = = 0.34/0.47 = 0.72 = 72%
P(Black)

Example 2: The probability that it is Friday and that a student is absent is 0.03. Since there are 5 school
days in a week, the probability that it is Friday is 0.2. What is the probability that a student is absent
given that today is Friday?

P(Absent|Friday) = P(Friday and Absent) = 0.03/0.2 = 0.15 = 15%

 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
Summary: The conditional probability of an event B in relationship to an event A is the probability that event
B occurs given that event A has already occurred. The notation for conditional probability is P(B|A), read
as the probability of B given A. The formula for conditional probability is:

INDEPENDENT EVENTS:
When two events are said to be independent of each other, what this means is that the probability that
one event occurs in no way affects the probability of the other event occurring. An example of two
independent events is as follows; say you rolled a die and flipped a coin. The probability of getting any
number face on the die in no way influences the probability of getting a head or a tail on the coin.

DEPENDENT EVENTS
When two events are said to be dependent, the probability of one event occurring influences the
likelihood of the other event.

Example 1: if you were to draw two cards from a deck of 52 cards. If on your first draw you had an ace
and you put that aside, the probability of drawing an ace on the second draw is greatly changed because
you drew an ace the first time. Let's calculate these different probabilities to see what's going on.
 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
The two events are dependent. The likelihood of the second event depends on what happens in the first
event.

Multiplication Law:
The multiplication law can be used to calculate the probability of the intersection of two events. The
multiplication law is based on the definition of conditional probability.

The multiplication rule states that:

“The probability of occurrence of given two events or in other words the probability of intersection of
two given events is equal to the product obtained by finding the product of the probability of
occurrence of both events.”

This implies that if A and B are two events given then:

P (A and B) = P (A ∩ B) = P (A) * P (B)

This rule is applicable in all the cases, that is, when events are independent or dependent. In case when
we have dependent events we have to be very careful in determining the probability of the second
event after the occurrence of first event.
 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
In such case the multiplication rule is modified as:

P (A and B) = P (A ∩ B) = P (A) * P (B|A)

Here, P (B|A) is the probability of occurrence of the second event B when the first event A has already
occurred.

Example 1: A bag contains 3 pink candies and 7 green candies. Two candies are taken out from the bag
with replacement. Find the probability that both candies are pink.
 Some Basic Relationships of
Probability
Example 2: A bag has 4 white cards and 5 blue cards. We draw two cards from the bag one by one
without replacement. Find the probability of getting both cards white.

Bayes’ Theorem:
Bayes’ theorem (also known as the Bayes’ rule) is a mathematical formula used to determine the
conditional probability of events. Essentially, the Bayes’ theorem describes the probability of an event
based on prior knowledge of the conditions that might be relevant to the event.