Statistics and

Probability

Lesson 4
Intro. to Probability
Probability
 The chance that something will happen.
 As a number, probability is from 0 (impossible) to 1
(certain).
History
 A short history of probability.pdf
Three approaches to Probability
1. Theoretical Probability
- symmetry or equal-likely outcomes

Example:
fair coin, fair dice being tossed so outcomes are
equally likely
2. Subjective Probability
 personal assessment of the situation
 based on person’s belief that an event will occur

Example:
 when a student tells his friend that he has 50 percent
chance of passing the quiz
 the probability that a student can swim around the
world in 24 hours is zero
3. Empirical Probability
 “experimental probability”
 collecting data from repeated trials or experiences, and
getting the proportion of times an event occurs
Example:
 observing 10 patients, noticing that 6 of them responded to a
medicine within one hour of the treatment, and thus, stating
that the probability of response within an hour of receiving the
treatment is 60 percent
Georges-Louis
Leclerc de Buffon (1707 – 1788)
was a French mathematician and naturalist. His ‘coin
problem’ is an early exercise in geometric probability, a
field in which probabilities are concerned with
proportions of areas (lengths or volumes) of geometric
objects under specified conditions.
“What is the probability that a coin, tossed randomly
at a grid, will land entirely within a tile rather than
beyond the tile boundaries?
Geometrical Probabilities

What is the probability of

hitting the bull’s eye when a
dart is thrown randomly at a
target, given the target has a
diameter of 24 cm, and the
bull’s eye has a diameter of
10 cm?
Geometrical Probabilities
 Geometric probabilities can be estimated using
empirical approaches, or identified exactly using
analytical methods (theoretical probability).
Empirical Probability
 An empirical probability is the proportion of times that an event of
interest occurs in a set number of repetitions of an experiment.

Example: Throw 100 darts at

the target.
15 darts hit the bull’s eye.
The empirical probability of
hitting the bull’s eye is 15/100
= 3/20.
Theoretical Probability
Geometrical Probabilities

 What is the probability

that a four-colored
spinner, with a diameter
of 20 cm, will land on
red?
Empirical Probability

Spin the spinner 50 times.

Spinner lands on red 12
times.
Empirical probability =
12/50 = 6/25.
Theoretical Probability
Activity
 Investigation on Empirical Probability: Buffon’s
Coin Problem
 Investigation on Geometric Probability