INTRODUCTION TO PROBABILITY THEORY

Ø An experiment is defined as a process for which its result is well defined.

Ø Deterministic experiment is an experiment whose outcomes can be predicted with certain, under ideal conditions.

Ø A random experiment (or non-deterministic) is an experiment

(i) whose all possible outcomes are known in advance,

(ii) whose each outcome is not possible to predict in advance, and

(iii) can be repeated under identical conditions. A die is ‘rolled’, a fair coin is ‘tossed’ are examples for random experiments.

Ø A simple event (or elementary event or sample point) is the most basic possible outcome of a random experiment and it cannot be decomposed further. Definition 12.5 A sample space is the set of all possible outcomes of a random experiment. Each point in sample space is an elementary event.

Venn diagrams:

Methods to find sample space:

PROBLEMS

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