PROBABILITY

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PROBABILITY(Basic Terminology)
Random Experiment: If in each trial of an experiment conducted
under identical conditions, the outcome is not unique, but may be any
one of the possible outcomes, then such an experiment is called
random experiment e.g. tossing a coin, throwing a dice etc.
Outcome: The result of a random experiment is called an outcome
Sample Space: The set of all possible outcomes is called as sample
space. It is denoted by S or Ω.
Trial: Any particular performance of a random experiment is called
a trial
Event: The set of desired outcomes is called as event. It is denoted
by A, B, C etc.

Exhaustive Events: The total number of possible outcomes

of a random experiment is known as exhaustive events e.g.
in tossing of a coin, there are two exhaustive events head
and tail.

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PROBABILITY(Basic Terminology)
Favorable Events: The number of cases favorable to an
event in a trial is the number of outcomes which entail the
happening of the event e.g. in drawing a card from a pack of
cards the number of cases favorable drawing of an ace is 4
Mutually Exclusive Events: Events are said to be mutually
exclusive if the happening of any one of them precludes the
happening of all the others e.g. in tossing a coin the events
head and tail are mutually exclusive.
Equally likely Events: Outcomes of trial are said to be
equally likely if taking into consideration all the relevant
evidences, there is no reason to expect one in preference to
the others e.g. in throwing an unbiased die, all the six faces
are equally likely to come.

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PROBABILITY(Basic Terminology)
Independent Events: Several events are said to be
independent if the happening of an event is not affected by
the supplementary knowledge concerning the occurrence of
any number of the remaining events e.g. when a die is thrown
twice, the result of the throw does not affect the result of
the second throw.
Probability Of an event: If a random experiment results in
‘n’ exhaustive, mutually exclusive and equally likely outcomes,
out of which m are favorable to the occurrence of an event
E, then the probability ‘p’ of occurrence of E, usually dented
by P(E) is given by:
P = P(E) = Number of favorable cases/ Total number of
exhaustive cases = m/n

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 PROBABILITY
• Product Rule: Suppose a procedure can be broken down into
a sequence of two tasks. If there are n1 ways to do the 1st
task and n2 ways to do the 2nd task after the first task has
been done, then there are n1 * n2 ways to do the procedure.

• Sum Rule: If a first task can be done in n1 ways and a

second task in n2 ways and if these tasks cannot be done at
the same time, then there are n1 + n2 ways to do either
task.
• P (Occurrence) + P(Non Occurrence) = 1 i.e. P(A) +
P(Ã) = 1
0 ≤ P(A) ≤ 1

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
Example: What is the chance that a leap year selected at
random will contain 53 Sundays?
Example: Two unbiased dice are thrown. Find the
probability that:
i) both the dice show the same number
ii)the first die shows 6
iii) the total of the numbers on the dice is 8
iv) the total of the numbers on the dice is greater than 8
v) the total of the numbers on the dice is 13
vi) the total of the numbers on the dice is any number
from 2 to 12, both inclusive.
Example: Among the digits 1,2,3,4,5 at first one is chosen
and then a second selection is made among the remaining
four digits. Assuming that all twenty possible outcomes
have equal probabilities, find the probability that an odd
digit will be selected i) the first time ii) the second time
and iii) both times.

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
Example: From 25 tickets, marked with first 25 numerals, one is
drawn at random. Find the chance that i) it is multiple of 5 or 7
and ii) it is a multiple of 3 or 7
Example: Four cards are drawn at random from a pack of 52
cards. Find the probability that i) they are a king, a queen, a jack
and an ace ii) Two are kings and two are queens iii) Two are black
and two are red iv) There are two cards of hearts and two cards
of diamonds.
Example: In shuffling a pack of cards, four are accidently
dropped, find the chance that the missing cards should be one
from each suit.
Example: What is the probability of getting 9 cards of the same
suit in one hand at a game of bridge?
Example: A committee of 4 people is to be appointed from 3
officers of the production department, 4 officers of the
purchase department, 2 officers of the sales department and 1
chartered accountant. Find the probability of forming the
committee in the following manner : i) There must be one from
each category ii)It should have at least one from the purchase
department iii) the chartered accountant must be in the
committee.

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
• Example: An urn contains 6 white, 4 red and 9 black balls.
If 3 balls are drawn at random, find the probability that i)
two of the balls are white ii) one is of each color iii) none is
red iv) at least one is white.
• Example: In a random arrangement of the letters of the
word ‘COMMERCE’, find the probability that all the vowels
come together.
• Example: What is the probability that 4 S’s come
consecutively in ‘MISSISSIPPI’?
• Example: 25 books are placed at random in a shelf. Find the
probability that a particular pair of books shall be i) always
together ii) never together.
• Example: n persons are seated on n chairs at a round table.
Find the probability that two specific persons are sitting
next to each other.

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
• Example: A five figure number is formed by the
digits 0,1,2,3,4 (without repetition). Find the
probability that the number formed is divisible by
4.
• Example: 12 balls are distributed at random among
three boxes. What is the probability that the first
box will contain 3 balls?
• Example: I f n biscuits be distributed among N
persons, find the chance that a particular person
receives r (<n) biscuits.
• Example: What is the probability that at least two
out of n people have the same birthday?

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
• Example: A box contains 2 white socks and 2 blue socks.
Two are drawn at random. Find the probability that they
match.
• Example: A box with 15 integrated chips contains 5
defective. If random samples of 3 chips are drawn, what is
the probability that all three are defective?
• Example: 5 horses are in race. Audrey picks 2 of the horses
at random and bets on them. Find the probability that
Audrey picked the winner.
• Example: A room Has 4 lamp sockets for which 4 bulbs are
chosen from a group of 8 working and 5 non-working bulbs.
What is the probability that the room is lit.
• Example: A box has 75 good IC chips and 25 defective
chips. If 12 IC are selected at random, find the probability
that at least 1 chip is defective?
• Example: Find the probability that randomly chosen 3 –
letter sequence will not have any repeated letters.
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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
• Example: Consider a pool of 6 I/O buffers. Assume that
any buffer is just a likely to be available (or occupied) as
any other. Compute the probability associated with the
following events:
A = “At least 2 but no more than 5 buffers occupied”
B = “At least 3 but no more than 5 buffers occupied”
C = “All buffers available or an even number of buffers
occupied”. Also determine the probability that at least one
of the events A, B and C occur.
• Example: A series of n jobs arrive at a computing center
with n processors. Assume that each of the nn possible
assignment vectors (processor for job 1, ….., processor for
job n) is equally likely. Find the probability that exactly on
processor will be idle?

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 PROBABILITY PROBLEMS
• Example: If a three digit decimal number is chosen at
random, find the probability that exactly k digits are
≥5, for 0 ≤ k ≤3
• Example 35: Three companies A, B, C are the
participants in a race. A and B are equally likely to win
the race, while C is twice likely to win as A is. If one
and only one participates can win the race, then what is
the probability that i) A wins ii) A or B wins?

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PROBABILITY (LESSON NO 2)

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 PROBABILITY
• Addition Theorem of probability: If A and B are two
events of a sample space S then P (A U B) = P (A) + P (B) – P
(A ∩ B)
P (A U B U C) = P (A) + P (B) + P(C) – P (A ∩ B) – P (B ∩ C) – P
(C ∩ A) + P (A ∩ B ∩ C)
• Mutually Exclusive Events: If A and B are two events of a
sample space S such that A ∩ B = ø then A and B are said
to be mutually exclusive events. If A and B are mutually
exclusive events then P (A U B) = P (A) + P (B)
• A, B and C are three mutually exclusive and exhaustive
events associated with a random experiment. Find P(A)
given that : P(B) = 3/2 P(A) and P(C) = ½ P(B)

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 PROBABILITY
 Given A, B, C are mutually exclusive events, explain whether
the following are permissible assignments of probabilities.
P (A) = 0.4, P (B) = 0.2, P(C) = 0.2, P (A U B) = 0.5
P (A) = 0.4, P (B) = 0.45, P(C) = 0.3
P (A) = 0.6, P (A ∩ B) = 0.5
 The probability that a student passes a Physics test is 2/3
and the probability that he passes both a physics test and an
English test is 14/45. the probability that he passes at least
one test is 4/5. What is the probability that he passes the
English test?
 The probability of occurrence of an event A is 0.7, the
probability of occurrence of B is 0.4 and that of at least one
of A and B not occurring is 0.6. Find the probability that at
least A and B occurs.

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 PROBABILITY
• An MCA applies for two firms X and Y. The probability of
his being selected in firm X is 0.7 and being rejected at Y
is 0.5. The probability of at least one of his application
being rejected is 0.6. What is the probability that he will
be selected in one of the firms?
• Suppose A and B are events with P (A) = 0.6, P (B) = 0.3 and
P (A ∩ B) = 0.2. Find the probability that i) A does not
occur, ii) B does not occur, iii) A or B occurs, iv) neither A
nor B occurs.
• The probability that a certain film gets award for its story
is 0.23, it will get award for its music is 0.15 and it will get
award for both is 0.07. What is the probability that film
will get award for a) at least one of the two b) exactly one
of the two.

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 PROBABILITY
• The probability that a person stopping at a petrol pump will
ask for petrol is 0.8, will ask for water is 0.7 and for both
is 0.65. Find the probability that a person will ask for a)
either petrol or water b) only water.
• Sample survey was taken to check which newspaper people
read (A, B, C). In a sample of 100 people the following
results are obtained. 60 read A, 40 read B, 70 read C, 45
read A and C, 32 read A and B, 38 read B and C, 30 read A,
B and C. If a person is selected at random, find the
probability that a) he reads only A b) he reads at least two
newspapers c) he doesn’t read any paper.

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 PROBABILITY
• Three newspapers A, B and C are published in
a certain city. It is estimated from a survey
that of the adult population : 20% read A,
16% read B, 14% read C, 8% read both A and
B, 5% read both A and C, 4% read both B and
C, 2% read all three. Find what percentage
read at least one of the newspapers?
• A card is drawn from a pack of 52 cards. Find
the probability of getting a king or a heart or
a red card.

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 PROBABILITY

Conditional Probability

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 PROBABILITY

• Conditional Probability: If A and B are the events of sample space S,

then conditional probability of A given B is the probability of A such
that B has already occurred and it is given by
P (A| B) = P (A ∩ B) / P (B)

• Multiplication Theorem of Probability: If A and B are two events of

a sample space S then
P (A ∩ B) = P (A| B) × P (B)

• Independent Events: If A and B are two events of a sample space S

such that P (A| B) = P (A) then A and B are said to be independent
events.
If A and B are independent events then P (A ∩ B) = P (A) × P (B)
If A and B are independent events then P (A | B) = P (A | B) = P (A)

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 PROBABILITY
• Consider 4 computer firms A, B, C and D bidding for a
contract. A survey of past bidding success of this firm
on similar contract gives following probability of winning.
P (A) = 0.35, P (B) = 0.15, P(C) = 0.3, P (D) = 0.2. Before
the decision is made to avoid a contract, firm B
withdraws its bid. Find the new probabilities of winning
the bid for A, C and D.
• Let A and B be two events with P (A) = 3/8, P (B) = 5/8
and P (A U B) = ¾. Find P (A| B) and P (B| A).
• We are given a box containing 5000 IC chips, of which
1000 are manufactured by company X and rest by
company Y. 10% of the chips made by company X and 5%
of the chips made by company Y are defective. If a
randomly chosen chip is found to be defective, find the
probability that it comes from company X.

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 PROBABILITY
 Prove that with example that any events may be pair wise
independent but need not to be mutually independent.
 Show that mutual independence does not imply pair wise
independence.
 An electronic device is made up of 2 components A and B and is
such that it works as long as 1 component works. Probability of
failure of A is 0.02 and that of B is 0.1. If they work
independently, find the probability that device works.
 In a certain college 25% of the students failed in Mathematics,
15% failed in Chemistry and 10% failed in both Mathematics and
Chemistry. A student is selected at random
If the student is failed in chemistry, what is the probability
that he or she is failed in Mathematics?
What is the probability that the student is failed neither in
Mathematics nor in Chemistry?
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 PROBABILITY

• If four squares are chosen at random on a

chessboard, find the chance that they should be in a
diagonal line.
• A consignment of 15 record players contains 4
defectives. The record players are selected at
random, one by one, and examined. Those examined
are not put back. What is the probability that the
9th one examined is the last defective?
• If A and B are two events, prove that P (A|~B) = P (A) – P
(A ∩ B) / 1 – P (B)

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Probability (Lesson 5)

BAYE’S THEOREM

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 Probability
• Baye’s Theorem: Statement: - An event A can
occur only if one of the mutually exclusive, disjoint
and exhaustive set B1, B2, ….. , Bn occurs. Suppose
that the unconditional probabilities P (B1), P (B2), …..
, P (Bn) and the conditional probabilities P (A|B1), P
(A|B2), ….. , P (A|Bn) are known. Then the
conditional probability P (Bi|A) of a specified event
Bi when A is stated to have actually occurred is
given by
P (Bi|A) = [P (Bi) * P (A|Bi)]/[ P (Bi) * P (A|Bi)]
This is known as Baye’s Theorem.
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 Probability

• In a bolt factory machines A, B, C

manufacture respectively 25%, 35% and 40%
of the total. Of their output 5%, 4%, 2% are
defective bolts. A bolt is drawn at random
from the product and is found to be
defective. What is the probability that it
was manufactured by machines A, B and C?

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 Probability

• Three machines A, B and C produce

respectively 40%, 10% and 50% of the items in
a factory. The % of defective items produced
by the machine is respectively 2%, 3% and 4%.
An item from the factory is selected at
random.
• Find the probability that the item is defective.
• If the item is defective, find the probability
that the item was produced by machine C.

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 Probability

• A given lot of IC chips contains 2% defective chips.

Each chip is tested before delivery. The tester
itself is not totally reliable so that:
• P (‘Tester says chip is good”| “ The chip is actually
good”) = 0.95
• P (‘Tester says chip is defective”| “ The chip is
actually defective”) = 0.94
• If a tested device is indicated to be defective
what is the probability that it is actually
defective?
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 Probability
• An export agency exports tennis balls, which are
supplied by 3 manufacturers A, B and C. The balls
manufactured by them contain 3%, 4% and 1%
defective balls respectively of the agencies total
export. 50% of balls are manufactured by A, 30%
by B, 20% by C. To test the quality of the balls,
one ball is selected at random and inspected. Find
• P (ball is manufactured by A and is defective)
• P (ball is manufactured by B and is defective)
• P (ball is manufactured by C and is defective)
• P (ball is defective)
• P (ball manufactured by A given that it is
defective
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 Probability
• Suppose that a product is produced in three factories X,
Y and Z. It is known that factory X produces thrice as
many items as factory Y and that factories Y and Z
produce the same number of items. Assume that it is
known that 3% of the items produced by each of the
factories X and Z are defective while 5% of those
manufactured by factory Y are defective. All the items
produced in the three factories are stocked, and an item
of product is selected at random
• What is the probability that this item is defective?
• If an item selected at random is found to be defective,
what is the probability that it was produced by factory
X, Y and Z respectively?

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 Probability

• Of all graduate students in university 70%

are women and 30% are men. Suppose that
20% and 25% of the female and male
population respectively smokes cigarettes.
What is the probability that a randomly
selected graduate is a) a women who smokes?
b) A man who smokes? c) A smoker?

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 Probability
• Example: In the year 20005 there were three
candidates for the position of principal Mr.
Chatterjee, Mr. Iyangar and Mr. Wagh. Their
chances of getting the appointment are in the
proportion 4:2:3 respectively. The probability that
Mr. Chatterjee is selected would introduce
computer education in the college is 0.3. The
probability of Mr. Iyangar and Mr. Wagh doing the
same are respectively 0.5 and 0.8. What is the
probability that there was computer education in
the college in 2006?

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 Probability

• The contents of urns I, II and III are as

follows: 1 white, 2 black and 3 red balls, 2
white, 1 black and 1 red balls and 4 white, 5
black and 3 red balls. One urn is chosen at
random and two balls are drawn. They
happen to be white and red. What is the
probability that they come from I, II or
III?

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 Probability

• There are three boxes. Box I contains 1

white, 2 red and 3 black balls. Box II
contains 2 white, 3 red and 1 black balls. Box
III contains 3 white, 1 red and 2 black balls.
A box is chosen at random. If the balls are
drawn are first red and second white, what
is the probability that they come from Box
II?

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 Probability

• A lot of transistors contain 0.6% defective.

Each transistor is subjected to a test that
correctly identifies a defective but also
misidentifies as defective about 2 in every
100 good transistors. Given that a randomly
chosen transistor is declared defective by
tester, compute the probability that is
actually defective.

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 Probability
• A binary communication channel carries data as one of two
types of signals denoted by 0 and 1. Owing to noise, a
transmitted 0 is sometimes received as 1 and a transmitted
1 is sometimes received as 0. For a given channel, assume a
probability of 0.94 that a transmitted 0 is correctly
received as a 0 and a probability of 0.91 that a transmitted
1 is received as a 1. Further assume a probability of 0.45 of
transferring a 0. If a signal is sent, determine:
• Probability that 1 is received.
• Probability that 0 is received.
• Probability that 1 was transmitted, given that 1 was
received.
• Probability that 0 was transmitted, given that 0 was
received.
• Probability of an error.

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 Probability
• Consider a trinary communication channel whose
channel diagram is shown below. For i = 1, 2, 3, let
Ti denote the event “Digit i is transmitted” and let
Ri denote the event “ Digit i is received’. Assume
that a 3 is transmitted three times more
frequently than a 1, and a 2 is sent twice as often
as 1. If a 1 has been received , what is the
expression for the probability that a 1 was sent?
Derive an expression for the probability of a
transmission error.

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THANK YOU

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