5: Modeling and Finding Probabilities

5.4

Independent Events

Read the textbook

• Key Idea 1: If two events are independent, what is the probability that they will both occur?
  
  

  Discussion

  Let’s review the problem presented in Section 4.3, changing the probabilities slightly. The weather forecast for a certain day is a 60% chance of rain (0.60) for San Juan and a chance of rain (0.50) for Chicago. What is the estimated probability of rain in both cities? Here is the procedure.

  
  
  
• Key Idea 2: The above example suggests that if two events are independent, then the estimated (experimental) probability that they both occur will be approximately equal to the product of the two individual estimated probabilities...



Discussion

That is, P(A and B) @ P(A) *  P(B)

Exercises

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