# Probability MITx 6.041x

Probability MITx 6.041x Notes

Last Updated: September 09, 2021 by Pepe Sandoval

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# Introduction to Probability - The Science of Uncertainty

## Probability models and axioms

• Quantitative description: it is a description in terms of numbers

• A probabilistic model is a quantitative description of a situation, a phenomenon, or an experiment whose outcome is uncertain.

• Creating a model involves the following steps:
1. Define the sample space: Describe the possible outcomes of the experiment (E.g. flip of a coin, roll a dice, etc.), composed of
• Sample spaces are sets which can be discrete, finite, infinite, continuous (recorded with infinite precision)...
• List (set) of the possible outcomes ($\Omega$), the elements of the set must be:
• Mutually Exclusive: At end of experiment there can only be one of the outcomes of the set
• Collectively Exhaustive: Together all the elements of the set exhaust all the possibilities, at the end of the experiment you should be able to select one from the set
• At the 'right' Granularity includes only the different outcomes in what we are considering relevant and not different in irrelevant outcomes. E.g. in the flip a coin example the sample space (set) would be Heads=0 or Tails=1, instead of Heads & Rain=0, Heads & No Rain=1, Tails & Rain=2, Tails & No Rain=3, whether is raining it's irrelevant, we only include what is relevant
2. Specify a probability law which assigns probabilities to outcomes or to collection of outcomes, the probability law specifies which outcomes are more likely to occur and which are less likely
• Probability is usually assigned to events (an event is a subset of the sample space). We assign probabilities to the various subsets of the sample space.
• Probabilities are given between 0 (practically cannot happen) and 1 (practically certain event will happen)
• Probabilities have certain axioms or basic properties (axioms: unprovable rule or principle accepted as true) for example probabilities cannot be negative.
• Axioms of probability:
• Non-negativity: Probabilities are positive $P(A) \ge 0$
• Normalization: We are certain event Omega will occur $P(\Omega) = 1$
• Additivity The probability that the outcome of the experiments falls in Event A or B is equal to the sum of the probabilities of these two sets.

• There are probabilistic experiments that can be described in stages (E.g two rolls of a tetrahedral die), these type of experiments can be represented using a sequential tree or description

### Properties of Probabilities

• if $A$ is subset of $B$ the probability that event $B$ occurs ($P(B)$) must be greater or equal than the probability that event $A$ occurs

$$A \subset B \Rightarrow P(A) \le P(B)$$

$$P(A \cup B) = P(A) + P(B) - P(A \cap B)$$

• Discrete Uniform Probability Law
• A finite sample space consist of $n$ equally likely elements
• The probability that event $A$ occurs which can be set of $k$ outcomes is $P(A) = \dfrac{k}{n}$

• Probability calculations steps:

• Specify sample space (values of the outcomes)
• Specify probability law
• Identify the probability of an event of interest
• Calculate
• There are two kinds of infinte sets: 1) discrete (countable) which are set whose elements can be arranged in a sequence like the integers and 2) uncountable sets whose elements cannot be arranged in a sequence

• Probabilities can be interpreted as frequencies: the frequency with which certain event will occur in a infinite number of repetitions of the experiment

• Probabilities are oftenly used informally to decribe beliefs or likelihood of events

• Probability gives a set of rules to think systematically about uncertain situations which can be used as tool to make predictions and decisions

• Real World generates data, statistics uses this data to come up with probabilistic models, we use probaility theory and this model to make predictions and desicions about the real world

## Math Background and Refresher for Probability

### Sets

• A set is a collection of distinct elements, that can be infinite or inifinite

• Sets operations

• union elements belong to one, the other or both
• intersection elements that belong to both sets -

### De Morgarn's Law

• The complement of the intersection of two sets is equal to the union of the complemenet of each individual set

$$(S \cap T)^c = S^c \cup T^c$$

• The complement of a union is the same as the intersection of the complements

$$(S \cup T)^c = S^c \cap T^c$$

• De Morgan's law extended to multiple sets and allows us to go back and forth between unions and intersections

### Sequence

• A sequence is a collection of elements that are coming out of some set and that collection of elements is indexed by the natural numbers (positive integers)

• Formally it is a function that to any natural number assigns an element of a set ($S$)

• We usually want to know if a sequence converge, this means we whant to know if as the index tends to infinity the sequence tends to an specifici number.

• Formally what it means that a sequence converge is that if we plot the sequence as a function of $i$ as $i$ tends to infinity the values of $a_i$ get and stay inside a small band (defined by \epsilon)

• if a sequence converge we can assume certain properties like the multiplication, sum or application of a function can be applied to the value the sequence(s) converge

• When we have a sequence that keep increasing (in math terms this means $a_i \leq a_{i+1}) the sequence converges to infinity • When we have a sequence that keeps getting closer to a certain value as$i$increases we say it converges to some real number$a$, in math termsn$|a_i -a| \leq b_i$and$b \rarrow 0$then$a_i \larr a$### Infinite Series • Inifinite series are the infinite sum of a sequence in math terms $$\sum_{i=1}^{\inf} a_i =\lim_{n\rightarrow\infty} \sum_{i=1}^n a_i$$ #### Geometric Series • It is an infinite series that shows in many examples and applications • It is the sume of all the powers of a certain number which absolute value is less than 1 ($|\alpha| < 1\$)

$$\sum_{i=0}^{\inf} \alpha^i = 1 +\alpha + \alpha^2 + ... = \dfrac{1}{1-\alpha}$$

## References

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