Probability theory

Probability theory is the branch of mathematics concerned with probability. Although there are
several different probability interpretations, probability theory treats the concept in a rigorous
mathematical manner by expressing it through a set of axioms. Typically these axioms formalise
probability in terms of a probability space, which assigns a measure taking values between 0 and 1,
termed the probability measure, to a set of outcomes called the sample space. Any specified subset of
these outcomes is called an event. Central subjects in probability theory include discrete and
continuous random variables, probability distributions, and stochastic processes, which provide
mathematical abstractions of non-deterministic or uncertain processes or measured quantities that
may either be single occurrences or evolve over time in a random fashion. Although it is not possible
to perfectly predict random events, much can be said about their behavior. Two major results in
probability theory describing such behaviour are the law of large numbers and the central limit
theorem. Although having a long history (with a first import theorem sated by Thomas Bayes), an
axiomatization was done during the beginning and mid of the 20th century. During that time, the
connection between proability and statistic was established, thereby also connecting to the field of
measure theory. In its modern form, it developed mostly in parallel to more prominent physical
theories (general relativity and quantum mechanics) and is often overshadowed by them, and
therefore sometimes leading to incosistent theories or wrong beliefs.

As a mathematical foundation for statistics, probability theory is essential to many human activities
that involve quantitative analysis of data.[1] Methods of probability theory also apply to descriptions
of complex systems given only partial knowledge of their state, as in statistical mechanics or
sequential estimation. A great discovery of twentieth-century physics was the probabilistic nature of
physical phenomena at atomic scales, described in quantum mechanics.[2]

Contents
History of probability
Treatment
Motivation
Discrete probability distributions
Continuous probability distributions
Measure-theoretic probability theory
Classical probability distributions
Convergence of random variables
Law of large numbers
Central limit theorem
See also
Notes
References

History of probability
The early form of statistical inference were developed by Arab mathematicians studying cryptography
between the 8th and 13th centuries. Al-Khalil (717–786) wrote the Book of Cryptographic Messages,
which contains the first use of permutations and combinations to list all possible Arabic words with
and without vowels. Al-Kindi (801–873) made the earliest known use of statistical inference in his
work on cryptanalysis and frequency analysis. An important contribution of Ibn Adlan (1187–1268)
was on sample size for use of frequency analysis.[3]

The modern mathematical theory of probability has its roots in attempts to analyze games of chance
by Gerolamo Cardano in the sixteenth century, and by Pierre de Fermat and Blaise Pascal in the
seventeenth century (for example the "problem of points"). Christiaan Huygens published a book on
the subject in 1657[4] and in the 19th century, Pierre Laplace completed what is today considered the
classic interpretation.[5]

Initially, probability theory mainly considered discrete events, and its methods were mainly
combinatorial. Eventually, analytical considerations compelled the incorporation of continuous
variables into the theory.

This culminated in modern probability theory, on foundations laid by Andrey Nikolaevich

Kolmogorov. Kolmogorov combined the notion of sample space, introduced by Richard von Mises,
and measure theory and presented his axiom system for probability theory in 1933. This became the
mostly undisputed axiomatic basis for modern probability theory; but, alternatives exist, such as the
adoption of finite rather than countable additivity by Bruno de Finetti.[6]

Treatment
Most introductions to probability theory treat discrete probability distributions and continuous
probability distributions separately. The measure theory-based treatment of probability covers the
discrete, continuous, a mix of the two, and more.

Motivation

Consider an experiment that can produce a number of outcomes. The set of all outcomes is called the
sample space of the experiment. The power set of the sample space (or equivalently, the event space)
is formed by considering all different collections of possible results. For example, rolling an honest
die produces one of six possible results. One collection of possible results corresponds to getting an
odd number. Thus, the subset {1,3,5} is an element of the power set of the sample space of die rolls.
These collections are called events. In this case, {1,3,5} is the event that the die falls on some odd
number. If the results that actually occur fall in a given event, that event is said to have occurred.

Probability is a way of assigning every "event" a value between zero and one, with the requirement
that the event made up of all possible results (in our example, the event {1,2,3,4,5,6}) be assigned a
value of one. To qualify as a probability distribution, the assignment of values must satisfy the
requirement that if you look at a collection of mutually exclusive events (events that contain no
common results, e.g., the events {1,6}, {3}, and {2,4} are all mutually exclusive), the probability that
any of these events occurs is given by the sum of the probabilities of the events.[7]

The probability that any one of the events {1,6}, {3}, or {2,4} will occur is 5/6. This is the same as
saying that the probability of event {1,2,3,4,6} is 5/6. This event encompasses the possibility of any
number except five being rolled. The mutually exclusive event {5} has a probability of 1/6, and the
event {1,2,3,4,5,6} has a probability of 1, that is, absolute certainty.

When doing calculations using the outcomes of an experiment, it is necessary that all those
elementary events have a number assigned to them. This is done using a random variable. A random
variable is a function that assigns to each elementary event in the sample space a real number. This
function is usually denoted by a capital letter.[8] In the case of a die, the assignment of a number to a
certain elementary events can be done using the identity function. This does not always work. For
example, when flipping a coin the two possible outcomes are "heads" and "tails". In this example, the
random variable X could assign to the outcome "heads" the number "0" ( ) and to the
outcome "tails" the number "1" ( ).

Discrete probability distributions

Discrete probability theory deals with events that

occur in countable sample spaces.

Examples: Throwing dice, experiments with decks of

cards, random walk, and tossing coins

Classical definition: Initially the probability of an

event to occur was defined as the number of cases
favorable for the event, over the number of total
outcomes possible in an equiprobable sample space:
see Classical definition of probability.

For example, if the event is "occurrence of an even

number when a die is rolled", the probability is given
The Poisson distribution, a discrete probability
by , since 3 faces out of the 6 have even distribution.
numbers and each face has the same probability of
appearing.

Modern definition: The modern definition starts with a finite or countable set called the sample
space, which relates to the set of all possible outcomes in classical sense, denoted by . It is then
assumed that for each element , an intrinsic "probability" value is attached, which
satisfies the following properties:

1.
2.

That is, the probability function f(x) lies between zero and one for every value of x in the sample space
Ω, and the sum of f(x) over all values x in the sample space Ω is equal to 1. An event is defined as any
subset of the sample space . The probability of the event is defined as

So, the probability of the entire sample space is 1, and the probability of the null event is 0.

The function mapping a point in the sample space to the "probability" value is called a
probability mass function abbreviated as pmf. The modern definition does not try to answer how
probability mass functions are obtained; instead, it builds a theory that assumes their existence.

Continuous probability distributions

Continuous probability theory deals with events that occur in a continuous sample space.
Classical definition: The classical definition breaks
down when confronted with the continuous case. See
Bertrand's paradox.

Modern definition: If the outcome space of a random

variable X is the set of real numbers ( ) or a subset
thereof, then a function called the cumulative
distribution function (or cdf) exists, defined by
. That is, F(x) returns the
probability that X will be less than or equal to x.

The cdf necessarily satisfies the following properties.

The normal distribution, a continuous probability
1. is a monotonically non-decreasing, right- distribution.
continuous function;
2.

3.

If is absolutely continuous, i.e., its derivative exists and integrating the derivative gives us the cdf
back again, then the random variable X is said to have a probability density function or pdf or simply

density

For a set , the probability of the random variable X being in is

In case the probability density function exists, this can be written as

Whereas the pdf exists only for continuous random variables, the cdf exists for all random variables
(including discrete random variables) that take values in

These concepts can be generalized for multidimensional cases on and other continuous sample
spaces.

Measure-theoretic probability theory

The raison d'être of the measure-theoretic treatment of probability is that it unifies the discrete and
the continuous cases, and makes the difference a question of which measure is used. Furthermore, it
covers distributions that are neither discrete nor continuous nor mixtures of the two.

An example of such distributions could be a mix of discrete and continuous distributions—for

example, a random variable that is 0 with probability 1/2, and takes a random value from a normal
distribution with probability 1/2. It can still be studied to some extent by considering it to have a pdf
of , where is the Dirac delta function.

Other distributions may not even be a mix, for example, the Cantor distribution has no positive
probability for any single point, neither does it have a density. The modern approach to probability
theory solves these problems using measure theory to define the probability space:
Given any set (also called sample space) and a σ-algebra on it, a measure defined on is
called a probability measure if

If is the Borel σ-algebra on the set of real numbers, then there is a unique probability measure on
for any cdf, and vice versa. The measure corresponding to a cdf is said to be induced by the cdf.
This measure coincides with the pmf for discrete variables and pdf for continuous variables, making
the measure-theoretic approach free of fallacies.

The probability of a set in the σ-algebra is defined as

where the integration is with respect to the measure induced by

Along with providing better understanding and unification of discrete and continuous probabilities,
measure-theoretic treatment also allows us to work on probabilities outside , as in the theory of
stochastic processes. For example, to study Brownian motion, probability is defined on a space of
functions.

When it's convenient to work with a dominating measure, the Radon-Nikodym theorem is used to
define a density as the Radon-Nikodym derivative of the probability distribution of interest with
respect to this dominating measure. Discrete densities are usually defined as this derivative with
respect to a counting measure over the set of all possible outcomes. Densities for absolutely
continuous distributions are usually defined as this derivative with respect to the Lebesgue measure.
If a theorem can be proved in this general setting, it holds for both discrete and continuous
distributions as well as others; separate proofs are not required for discrete and continuous
distributions.

Classical probability distributions

Certain random variables occur very often in probability theory because they well describe many
natural or physical processes. Their distributions, therefore, have gained special importance in
probability theory. Some fundamental discrete distributions are the discrete uniform, Bernoulli,
binomial, negative binomial, Poisson and geometric distributions. Important continuous
distributions include the continuous uniform, normal, exponential, gamma and beta distributions.

Convergence of random variables

In probability theory, there are several notions of convergence for random variables. They are listed
below in the order of strength, i.e., any subsequent notion of convergence in the list implies
convergence according to all of the preceding notions.

Weak convergence
A sequence of random variables converges weakly to the random variable if
their respective cumulative distribution functions converge to the cumulative
distribution function of , wherever is continuous. Weak convergence is also called
convergence in distribution.

Most common shorthand notation:

Convergence in probability
 The sequence of random variables is said to converge towards the random
variable in probability if for every ε > 0.

Most common shorthand notation:

Strong convergence
The sequence of random variables is said to converge towards the random
variable strongly if . Strong convergence is also known as almost sure
convergence.

Most common shorthand notation:

As the names indicate, weak convergence is weaker than strong convergence. In fact, strong
convergence implies convergence in probability, and convergence in probability implies weak
convergence. The reverse statements are not always true.

Law of large numbers

Common intuition suggests that if a fair coin is tossed many times, then roughly half of the time it
will turn up heads, and the other half it will turn up tails. Furthermore, the more often the coin is
tossed, the more likely it should be that the ratio of the number of heads to the number of tails will
approach unity. Modern probability theory provides a formal version of this intuitive idea, known as
the law of large numbers. This law is remarkable because it is not assumed in the foundations of
probability theory, but instead emerges from these foundations as a theorem. Since it links
theoretically derived probabilities to their actual frequency of occurrence in the real world, the law of
large numbers is considered as a pillar in the history of statistical theory and has had widespread
influence.[9]

The law of large numbers (LLN) states that the sample average

of a sequence of independent and identically distributed random variables converges towards

their common expectation , provided that the expectation of is finite.

It is in the different forms of convergence of random variables that separates the weak and the strong
law of large numbers

Weak law: for

Strong law: for

It follows from the LLN that if an event of probability p is observed repeatedly during independent
experiments, the ratio of the observed frequency of that event to the total number of repetitions
converges towards p.

For example, if are independent Bernoulli random variables taking values 1 with
probability p and 0 with probability 1-p, then for all i, so that converges to p almost
surely.