Probability

What methods do you use to calculate (or guesstimate) how probable something is to occur?

The more developed field of probability that underlies modern statistics and practical mathematical research traces its origins back to an apparent contradiction that arose in calculations about a dice game in 1654 that called on the expertise of two brilliant mathematicians, Pascal and Fermat.  One of the curiosities of probability (that makes it particularly interesting) is the number of results that do seem to be contradictory or that are counter-intuitive.   It’s also what makes reasoning about probability important, because being naïve to some of these results makes us vulnerable – not only to things like gambling, but also to reasoning that is used by political figures about economic strategies, human influence on climate change, evidence inferring someone’s guilt and so on.  We will be focusing on some basic ways to construct probabilistic arguments and summaries.

Learning outcomes

• Describe and apply methods for developing an intuitive sense of the probability of events occurring
• Apply tree diagrams and Venn diagrams to describe the probability of events concurring
• Solve non-routine problems involving probabilities