MATH 1040 - Introduction to Statistics

Lesson 10.5 Independent Events

Reading

Reading sections are from the Introductory Statistics Textbook

• 3.1.3 Probabilities when events are not disjoint(pages 92-94)
• 3.1.5 Independence (pages 96-98 of the Introductory Statistics Textbook)
• 3.2.6 Checking for independent and mutually exclusive events (pages 106-108)

Lesson

Conditional probabilities happen when the probability of one event depends on the occurrence of another event.

However, there are some events that do not depend on another event. If this is the case, then an events conditional probability is the same as the probability of the event itself.

\[P(B|A) = P(B)\]

In other words, event B doesn’t change whether event A happens or not.