MAT 271E - Probability and

Statistics
Assist. Prof. Dr. Faiz Muhaffel
Department of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering
2023-2024 Fall Semester
Room number A-321
[email protected]
Probability - "The logic of uncertainty"
It deals with uncertain events. For example, when a die is thrown, it is certain that the die will fall to
the ground, but it is not certain which face will land on top.

Experiment: A process that results in one of the possible outcomes.

Example: Rolling a die, throwing a coin, etc.

Sample space: The set of all possible outcomes of an experiment.

Example: Throwing a coin -------- S = {Y,T}

Sample point Each element in the sample space.

Event: A subset of the sample space.
Example: Experiment ------- Throwing a coin 3 times

Example space ------ S = {YTT,YYT,YTY,YYY,TYY,TTY,TYT,TTT}

Event ------ 1 heads 2 tails

E = {YYT, YTY, TYY}
Example:
What is the probability of getting a 4 on the top side of a dice roll without cheating
(What are the sample spaces and events)?
Sample space → S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 }
Event → A = { 4 } → E(A) = 1
Probability of event A;
1
P(A) =
6
Example:
Determine the sample space when two dice are thrown together. In an event A the
sum of the dice is 7 and in an event B both dice have the same number. Write the
sets that determine events A and B.
(1,1) (1,2) (1,3) (1,4) (1,5) (1,6)
(2,1) (2,2) (2,3) (2,4) (2,5) (2,6) A = (6,1), (5,2), (4,3), (3,4), (2,5), (1,6)
(3,1) (2,2) (3,3) (3,4) (3,5) (3,6)
S = (4,1) (4,2) (4,3) (4,4) (4,5) (4,6)
(5,1) (5,2) (5,3) (5,4) (5,5) (5,6) B = (1,1), (2,2), (3,3), (4,4), (5,5), (6,6)
(6,1) (6,2) (6,3) (6,4) (6,5) (6,6)
 Probability: The likelihood (P) of an event
P(A) = probability of event A occurring

Experimental probability: The probability estimated based on an

observation.

Number of occurrences of event A

P(A) =
Number of times the procedure is repeated

Example: Probability of a basketball player succeeding in a free

throw?
We observed 10 shots and 6 were successful
P(A) = = 0.6 = 60%
 Probability notation notations

Fractional

Percentage

Decimal number
Theoretical probability: A type of probability in which the
probability of an event occurring is calculated theoretically,
without observation.
To be valid, all sample points must have an equal probability of occurring.

Number of elements of event set A

P(A) =
Number of elements of the sample space

Example: Probability of drawing hearts from a deck of playing cards?

Experiment = Draw a card

Event = (event A) = Card being a heart

Example space = S = {Spade1, Club5, Spade8,.......} Total 52 elements

Event = A = {Hearts1, Hearts2,.......} Total 13 elements

13
P(A) = = 0.25 = 25%
52
Example:
A bag contains 12 colored balls, 5 red, 4 white and 3 black. What is the probability
of not choosing a red ball?
5
If the probability of drawing red from the bag is , the probability of not drawing
12
5 7
red is 1 − = .
12 12
Example:
From a deck of playing cards, a card is drawn continuously without replacing it
until the Ace of Spades is found. What is the probability of finding the ace of spades
between the 20th and 30th card?

11
P(A) =
52
 Union and Intersection of Sets
A and B are two events defined in the same sample space S;
• The combination of events A and B is denoted as AUB. The outcomes of an AUB
event arise from either A or B or both.
• The intersection of events A and B is denoted as A∩B. The outcomes of event A∩B
arise from both event A and event B.

Example:
A single card is drawn from a deck of playing cards. Let event A denote the drawing of
sevens and event B the drawing of diamonds. Find A∩B and AUB.

Let us define events A and B:

A = { 7 of Clubs, 7 of Spades, 7 of Hearts, 7 of Diamonds}

B = { Diamond 1, Diamond 2, Diamond 3,......, Queen of Diamonds, King of Diamonds}
A∩B = 7 diamonds

AUB = { 1 of Diamonds, 2 of Diamonds, ..., 6 of Diamonds, 8 of

Diamonds, ..., King of Diamonds, 7 of Clubs, 7 of Spades, 7 of Hearts,
7 of Diamonds}.
Example:
Let event A be the set of X's satisfying the equation X2 -8X-9=0;
Let B be the set of X's satisfying the equation X2 + X = 0.
State A∩B and AUB.
SEPARATE EVENTS: If events A and B defined in the same sample space have
no common outcome, then events A and B are called SEPARATE EVENTS.
That is, A∩B = ∅.

ALLOCATING EVENT Let A be any event defined in a sample space. The

complement of A is an event that contains all outcomes in the sample space S
except the outcomes contained in event A. The complement of event A is
denoted by A or Ac.

Example:
Let A be a set of (x,y) satisfying the inequality x2+y2 < 1. What is the relation that
shows the complement of event A?
GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION OF EVENTS:
It is difficult to understand the relationships between more than two events
using only the definitions of union, intersection and complement. A graphical
representation that facilitates the understanding of complex phenomena is
called a Venn diagram.

event A

complement of event A
Example:
When there are events A and B defined in the same sample space, there are two
situations that are often desired to be known:
a) The case of being exactly in one of the two
b) Being in one of the two at most

a) Let event E denote the state of being of either event A or B (but not both).
b) Event F is the occurrence of at most one of two events.
 Permutation (Hierarchy)

People have been interested in questions related to finding the number of times
objects can be arranged in different orders. For example, how many different
ways can 12 people sit in a row, how many different ways can 8 people line up in
front of a movie box office.

If we are interested in sorting n objects, arranging them in a certain order, all

possible arrangements are called permutations. For example, let us want to
determine how many different ways three books labeled with the letters A, B and
C can be arranged on a shelf. This question can be answered in two different
ways.
 The 1st way is to make use of the tree diagram. In the tree diagram, the number of
different orders, i.e. the number of row orders, is obtained as follows.

Book in 1. Book in 2. Book in 3. Possible

shelf shelf shelf orders

From this diagram, it can be seen that the books labeled A, B, C can be arranged in six
different orders.
The 2nd way is based on filling in the boxes. The first eye can be filled with one
of the books A, B and C, i.e. in 3 different ways.

For each book that can be placed in the first compartment, the second
compartment can be filled with one or the other of the two remaining books.

The third eye can be filled with a remaining book.

Thus, the number of different layouts of the three books is 3.2.1 = 6

Multiplication Principle: Let us consider an event that occurs on n1 paths. Let
the second event following it occur on n2 paths for each of the n1 paths. In this
case, the number of different occurrences of the whole event is n1.n2.

Example: How many different three-digit numbers can be written with the
digits 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 without repeating any digit?

The total number of three-digit numbers that can be formed according to the
principle of multiplication:

(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) 5 4 3 60
ADDITION PRINCIPLE Consider two operations, the first of which can be done in
n1 different ways and the second in n2 different ways. If only one of the two
operations can be done, then one or the other of these operations can be done in
(n1 + n2) ways. The principle of addition can be generalized to situations
involving a finite number of operations.

Example:
The options a student will use to get to the University for morning classes: 3
different shuttle buses, two different friends' cars, his/her father's car or a
neighbor's car. How many different ways can this student reach the University
that morning?
3+2+2=7
 n FACTORIAL (n!)

The product of all integers from 1 to n is called n factorial and is denoted by n!

n! = 1.2......n = n(n-1)......2.1

0! = 1 and 1! = 1.

Theorem: The number of different orders to be obtained when n different objects

are sorted is n! The number of orders obtained by sorting n different objects is
denoted by n P n = n.

Example:
In how many different orders can 7 people line up in front of a toll booth?
7 P7 = = 7.6 .....1 = 5040 number of different orders that 7 people lined up
Theorem: If k (k ≤ n) of n different objects (objects can be used only once in the
ordering) are sorted, the number of different orders obtained is

Example:
How many different two-letter words can be made from the letters of the word
ORHAN?
So far we have analyzed the number of patterns of different objects. If some
of the objects are the same, then we will need to perform different operations to
find the number of patterns.

Theorem: Let there be n=(n1+ ...+nk) objects, n1 of one kind, n2 of a second kind,
...,nk of the kth kind:
Example:
How many different words can we get if we use the letters of the word
İSTATİSTİK in every order?

There are 5 different letters (i, s, t, a, k) in the word İSTATİSTİK. n1=3 (number of
i's), n2=2 (number of s's), n3=3 (number of t's), n4=1 (number of a's) and n5=1
(number of k's).
CIRCULAR ORDER: If we arrange n different objects around a circle, the number
of different orders to be obtained is (n-1)!

Example:
How many different arrangements can 7 people sit around a round
table?
(7-1)! =6! = 720
 Combination
A combination is an unordered selection from a group of objects. While in
permutation the order is important, in combination the order is not important,
but the choice is. Therefore, the number of permutations is not equal to the
number of combinations.

If we want to choose two of the three objects denoted by A, B and C, without

considering the order, we can make three different choices, AB, AC, BC. Since we do
not consider the order of the objects here, AB and BA are the same choices. If we
want to find the number of different orders to be obtained from ordering the three
objects in pairs, we use permutation since the order is important here;
Combination Permutations
Example:
How many different ways can 3 of the 7 types of fruit juice on the shelf of a
supermarket be selected?

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