3. Probability: Probability
Probability of the Difference
The probability of the intersection is not only used to calculate the probability of the union, but it is also used to calculate the probability of the difference. Recall that the difference of events and are all outcomes classified as , but NOT as : .
The difference of and thus contains all outcomes that are classified as , minus the outcomes in that are also classified as .
So the difference of and is minus the intersection of and :
Consider the random experiment of rolling a single die. For this experiment, events and are defined as follows:
- 'you roll a number '
- 'you roll an odd number'
The probabilities of events and are:
In order to calculate the probability of the difference, first calculate the probability of the intersection .
To determine how the intersection should be calculated, investigate whether events and are independent or not. If it is known that the outcome of the roll is a number , then the probability of the roll being odd is out of ; namely and , but not :
This demonstrates that , so and are not independent. Therefore, the multiplication rule should be applied:
Now, the probability of the difference of and can be calculated: