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In probability theory, an outcome is a possible result of an experiment or trial. [1] Each possible outcome of a particular experiment is unique, and different outcomes are mutually exclusive (only one outcome will occur on each trial of the experiment). All of the possible outcomes of an experiment form the elements of a sample space. [2]
The sixteenth-century polymath Cardano demonstrated the efficacy of defining odds as the ratio of favourable to unfavourable outcomes. Implied by this definition is the fact that the probability of an event is given by the ratio of favourable outcomes to the total number of possible outcomes. [2]
A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin. Since the coin is fair, the two outcomes ("heads" and "tails") are both equally probable; the probability of "heads" equals the probability of "tails"; and since no other outcomes are possible, the probability of either "heads" or "tails" is 1/2 (which could also be written as 0.5 or 50%).
In probability theory, the sample space (also called sample description space, [1] possibility space, [2] or outcome space [3]) of an experiment or random trial is the set of all possible outcomes or results of that experiment. [4]
In probability theory, an experiment or trial (see below) is any procedure that can be infinitely repeated and has a well-defined set of possible outcomes, known as the sample space. [1] An experiment is said to be random if it has more than one possible outcome, and deterministic if it has only one.
In probability theory, an event is a set of outcomes of an experiment (a subset of the sample space) to which a probability is assigned. [1] A single outcome may be an element of many different events, [2] and different events in an experiment are usually not equally likely, since they may include very different groups of outcomes. [3]
In probability theory and statistics, a probability distribution is the mathematical function that gives the probabilities of occurrence of possible outcomes for an experiment. [1] [2] It is a mathematical description of a random phenomenon in terms of its sample space and the probabilities of events (subsets of the sample space). [3]
Epistemic or subjective probability is sometimes called credence, as opposed to the term chance for a propensity probability. Some examples of epistemic probability are to assign a probability to the proposition that a proposed law of physics is true or to determine how probable it is that a suspect committed a crime, based on the evidence ...