Probability of A OR B

If events A and B are mutually exclusive , then the probability of A or B is simply:

p(A or B) = p(A) + p(B).
What is the probability of rolling a die and getting either a 1 or a 6? Since it is impossible
to get both a 1 and a 6, these two events are mutually exclusive. Therefore,
p(1 or 6) = p(1) + p(6) = 1/6 + 1/6 = 1/3
If the events A and B are not mutually exclusive, then
p(A or B) = p(A) + p(B) - p(A and B).
The logic behind this formula is that when p(A) and p(B) are added, the occasions on
which A and B both occur are counted twice. To adjust for this, p(A and B) is subtracted.
What is the probability that a card selected from a deck will be either an ace or a spade?
The relevant probabilities are:
p(ace) = 4/52
p(spade) = 13/52
The only way in which an ace and a spade can both be drawn is to draw the ace of
spades. There is only one ace of spades, so:
p(ace and spade) = 1/52 . The probability of an ace or a spade can be computed as:
p(ace)+p(spade)-p(ace and spade) = 4/52 + 13/52 - 1/52 = 16/52 = 4/13.
Consider the probability of rolling a die twice and getting a 6 on at least one of the rolls.
The events are defined in the following way:
Event A: 6 on the first roll: p(A) = 1/6
Event B: 6 on the second roll: p(B) = 1/6
p(A and B) = 1/6 x 1/6
p(A or B) = 1/6 + 1/6 - 1/6 x 1/6 = 11/36

The same answer can be computed using the following admittedly convoluted approach:
Getting a 6 on either roll is the same thing as not getting a number from 1 to 5 on both
rolls. This is equal to: 1 - p(1 to 5 on both rolls).
The probability of getting a number from 1 to 5 on the first roll is 5/6. Likewise, the
probability of getting a number from 1 to 5 on the second roll is 5/6 . Therefore, the
probability of getting a number from 1 to 5 on both rolls is: 5/6 x 5/6 = 25/36. This means
that the probability of not getting a 1 to 5 on both rolls (getting a 6 on at least one roll) is:

1-25/36 = 11/36.
Despite the convoluted nature of this method, it has the advantage of being easy to
generalize to three or more events. For example, the probability of rolling a die three
times and getting a six on at least one of the three rolls is:

1 - 5/6 x 5/6 x 5/6 = .421

In general, the probability that at least one of k independent events will occur is:
1 - (1 - ? )k
where each of the events has probability ? ?of occurring.

Probability of A AND B

If A and B are Independent

A and B are two events. If A and B are independent, then the probability that events A
and B both occur is: p(A and B) = p(A) x p(B). In other words, the probability of A and B
both occurring is the product of the probability of A and the probability of B. What is the
probability that a fair coin will come up with heads twice in a row? Two events must
occur: a head on the first toss and a head on the second toss. Since the probability of each
event is 1/2, the probability of both events is: 1/2 x 1/2 = 1/4. Now consider a similar
problem: Someone draws a card at random out of a deck, replaces it, and then draws
another card at random. What is the probability that the first card is the ace of clubs and
the second card is a club (any club). Since there is only one ace of clubs in the deck, the
probability of the first event is 1/52. Since 13/52 = 1/4 of the deck is composed of clubs,
the probability of the second event is 1/4. Therefore, the probability of both events is:
1/52 x 1/4 = 1/208 .

If A and B are Not Independent

If A and B are not independent, then the probability of A and B is p(A and B) = p(A) x
p(B|A) where p(B|A) is the conditional probability of B given A. If someone draws a card
at random from a deck and then, without replacing the first card, draws a second card,
what is the probability that both cards will be aces? Event A is that the first card is an ace.
Since 4 of the 52 cards are aces, p(A) = 4/52 = 1/13. Given that the first card is an ace,
what is the probability that the second card will be an ace as well? Of the 51 remaining
cards, 3 are aces. Therefore, p(B|A) = 3/51 = 1/17 and the probability of A and B is: 1/13
x 1/17 = 1/221

Exercises
1. What is the probability of rolling a pair of dice and obtaining a total score of 10 or
more?
2. A box contains three black pieces of cloth, two striped pieces, and four dotted pieces.
A piece is selected randomly and then placed back in the box. A second stick is selected
randomly. What is the probability that:
(a) both pieces are dotted?
(b) the first piece is black and
the second piece is dotted?
(c) one piece is black and one piece
is striped?
3. A card is drawn at random from a deck. What is the probability that it is an ace or a
king?
4. A card is drawn at random from a deck. What is the probability it is either a red card,
an ace, or both?
5. Two cards are drawn from a deck (without replacement). What is the probability they
are both diamonds?
Answers
1. 1/6
2a. 16/81
2b. 4/27
2c. 4/27
3. 2/13
4. 7/13
5. 1/17

Definition:
The complement of an event A is the set of all outcomes in the
sample space that are not included in the outcomes of event A. The
complement of event A is represented by (read as A bar).

Rule:
Given the probability of an event, the probability of its complement
can be found by subtracting the given probability from 1. P( ) = 1 - P(A)
You may be wondering how this rule came about. In the last lesson, we learned that the
sum of the probabilities of the distinct outcomes within a sample space is 1. For
example, the probability of each of the 4 outcomes in the sample space above is one
fourth, yielding a sum of 1. Thus, the probability that an outcome does not occur is
exactly 1 minus the probability that it does. Let's look at Experiment 1 again, using this
subtraction principle.
Experiment 1: A spinner has 4 equal sectors colored yellow, blue, green, and red. What
is the probability of landing on a sector that is not red after spinning this spinner?

Experiment 2: A single card is chosen at random from a standard deck of 52 playing

cards. What is the probability of choosing a card that is not a king?
Experiment 3: A single 6-sided die is rolled. What is the probability of getting a number
that is not 4?
Experiment 4: A single card is chosen at random from a standard deck of 52 playing
cards. What is the probability of choosing a card that is not a club?
Experiment 5: A glass jar contains 20 red marbles. If a marble is chosen at random from

the jar, what is the probability that it is not red?

General Laws of Probability

1. General Law of Addition: When two or more events will happen
at the same time, and the events are not mutually exclusive, then:
P(X or Y) = P(X) + P(Y) - P(X and Y)
Notice that, the equation P(X or Y) = P(X) + P(Y) - P(X and Y),
contains especial events: An event (X and Y) which is the
intersection of set/events X and Y, and another event (X or Y)
which is the union (i.e., either/or) of sets X and Y. Although this is
very simple, it says relatively little about how event X influences
event Y and vice versa. If P(X and Y) is 0, indicating that en X and
Y do not intersect (i.e., they are mutually exclusive), then we have
P(X or Y) = P(X) + P(Y). On the other hand if P(X and Y) is not 0,
then there are interactions between the two events X and Y.
Usually it could be a physical interaction between them. This
makes the relationship P(X or Y) = P(X) + P(Y) - P(X and Y)
nonlinear because the P(X and Y) term is subtracted off which
influences the result.
2. Special Law of Addition: When two or more events will happen
at the same time, and the events are mutually exclusive, then:
P(X or Y) = P(X) + P(Y)
3. General Law of Multiplication: When two or more events will
happen at the same time, and the events are dependent, then the
general rule of multiplicative law is used to find the joint
probability:
P(X and Y) = P(X) . P(Y|X),
where P(X|Y) is a conditional probability.
4. Special Law of Multiplicative: When two or more events will
happen at the same time, and the events are independent, then the
special rule of multiplication law is used to find the joint
probability:
P(X and Y) = P(X) . P(Y)
5. Conditional Probability Law: A conditional probability is
denoted by P(X|Y). This phrase is read: the probability that X will
occur given that Y is known to have occurred.

Conditional probabilities are based on knowledge of one of the

variables. The conditional probability of an event, such as X,
occurring given that another event, such as Y, has occurred is
expressed as:
P(X|Y) = P(X and Y) / P(Y)
Provided P(Y) is not zero. Note that when using the conditional
law of probability, you always divide the joint probability by the
probability of the event after the word given. Thus, to get P(X
given Y), you divide the joint probability of X and Y by the
unconditional probability of Y. In other words, the above equation
is used to find the conditional probability for any two dependent
events.
A special case of the Bayes Theorem is:
P(X|Y) = P(Y|X). P(X) / P(Y)
If two events, such as X and Y, are independent then:
P(X|Y) = P(X),

and
P(Y|X) = P(Y)

Mutually Exclusive versus Independent Events

Mutually Exclusive (ME): Event A and B are M.E if both cannot occur
simultaneously. That is, P[A and B] = 0.
Independency (Ind.): Events A and B are independent if having the
information that B already occurred does not change the probability that A
will occur. That is P[A given B occurred] = P[A].
If two events are ME they are also Dependent: P(A given B) = P[A and
B]/P[B], and since P[A and B] = 0 (by ME), then P[A given B] = 0.
Similarly,
If two events are Dependent then they are also not ME.
If two events are Dependent then they may or may not be ME.
If two events are not ME, then they may or may not be Independent.
The following Figure contains all possibilities. The notations used in this
table are as follows: X means does not imply, question mark ? means it
may or may not imply, while the check mark means it implies.

Bernstein was the first to discovere that (probabilistic) pairwise

independency and mutual independency for a collection of events A1,...,
An are different notions.