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Probability
Outline Catalog of articles Probabilists Glossary Notation Journals Category v t e
Certainty series Agnosticism Approximation Belief Certainty Doubt Determinism Epistemology Fallibilism Fatalism Hypothesis Justification Nihilism Probability Scientific theory Skepticism Solipsism Theory Truth Uncertainty v t e
Probability (or likelihood[1]) is a measure or estimation of how likely it is that something will happen or that a statement is true. Probabilities are given a value between 0 (0% chance or will not happen) and 1 (100% chance or will happen).[2] The higher the degree of probability, the more likely the event is to happen, or, in a longer series of samples, the greater the number of times such event is expected to happen.
These concepts have been given an axiomatic mathematical derivation in probability theory (see probability axioms), which is used widely in such areas of study as mathematics, statistics, finance, gambling, science, artificial intelligence/machine learning and philosophy to, for example, draw inferences about the expected frequency of events. Probability theory is also used to describe the underlying mechanics and regularities of complex systems.[3]
Contents [hide] 1 Interpretations 2 Etymology 3 History 4 Theory 5 Applications 6 Mathematical treatment 6.1 Independent probability 6.1.1 Mutually exclusive 6.1.2 Not mutually exclusive 6.2 Conditional probability 6.3 Inverse probability 6.4 Summary of probabilities 7 Relation to randomness 8 See also 9 Notes 10 References 11 External links
Interpretations[edit source | editbeta]
Main article: Probability interpretations
When dealing with experiments that are random and well-defined in a purely theoretical setting (like tossing a fair coin), probabilities describe the statistical