Chapter 2
Probability
This chapter introduces the key concept of probability, its fundamental rules and properties, and discusses most basic methods of computing probabilities of various events.
2.1 Events and their probabilities
The concept of probability perfectly agrees with our intuition. In everyday life, probability of an event is understood as a chance that this event will happen.
Example 2.1.
If a fair coin is tossed, we say that it has a 50-50 (equal) chance of turning up heads or tails. Hence, the probability of each side equals 1/2. It does not mean that a coin tossed 10 times will always produce exactly 5 heads and 5 tails. If you don’t believe, try it! However, if you toss a coin 1 million times, the proportion of heads is anticipated ...
Get Probability and Statistics for Computer Scientists, 2nd Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
