Week 6: Probability

Introduction

Statistical techniques offer ways of dealing with variability, and natural variability is something that scientists and engineers meet all the time. Each time an experiment or a measurement is repeated, a slightly different result may be obtained; in any group of people there will be a variation in height; the count of background radiation at any individual location fluctuates randomly from moment to moment. It is therefore very important to be able to decide with some measure of certainty whether a particular result could have been obtained simply by chance or whether it has some real significance, and the mathematics of chance and probability underpin all aspects of statistics. Probability is the subject for this week

By the end of this week you will have:

• gained an understanding of what probabilities can really tell you
• learned how to determine the probability of a particular outcome occurring
• gained an understanding of how to combine probabilities for more than one event
• calculated probabilities in specific circumstances.