Experiment : An operation whichcan produce some well-defined outcomes is
called an experiment.
Random Experiment : An experiment in which all possible outcomes are known
and the exact output cannot be predicted in advance, is called a random experiment. Examples of Performing a Random Experiment
1. Rolling an unbiased dice.
2. Tossing a fair coin.
3. Drawing a card from a pack of well-shuffled cards.
4. Picking up a ball of certain colour from a bag containing balls of different
colours. Details :
1. When we throw a coin. Then either a Head (H) or a Tail (T) appears
2. A dice is a solid cube, having 6 faces, marked 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 respectively.
When we throw a die, the outcome is the number that appears on its upper
face.
3. A pack of cards has 52 cards.
It has 13 cards of each suit, namely Spades, Clubs, Hearts and Diamonds.
Cards of spades and clubs are black cards.
Cards of hearts and diamonds are red cards.
There are 4 honours of each suit.
These are Aces, Kings, Queens and Jacks.
These are called face cards.
Sample Space :
When we perform an experiment, then the set 'S of all possible
outcomes is called the Sample Space.
Examples of Sample Spaces :
1. In tossing a coin, S = (H, T).
2. If two coins are tossed, then S = {HH, HT, TH TT}
3. In rolling a dice, we have, S = (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}.
Event : Any subset of a sample space is called an event.
Probability of Occurrence of an Event :
Let S be the sample space and let E be an event.
Then, E C S.
∴ P (E) = n (E)/n (S)
Results on Probability :
1. P (S) = 1
2. 0 ≤ P (E) ≤ 1
3. P (∅) = 0
4. For any events A and B, we have :
P (A ∪ B) = P (A) + P (B) - P (A ∩ B)
5. If A denotes (not-A), then P ( A ) = 1 - P (A).