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Probability Distribution of Discrete Random Variables

The document discusses probability distributions of discrete random variables. It provides an example of rolling a die 20 times and constructing a probability mass function and histogram to graphically represent the probability of each outcome between 1-6. The document also discusses calculating the probability of specific outcomes occurring by taking the number of occurrences and dividing by the total number of observations.

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Hanna Galati
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469 views8 pages

Probability Distribution of Discrete Random Variables

The document discusses probability distributions of discrete random variables. It provides an example of rolling a die 20 times and constructing a probability mass function and histogram to graphically represent the probability of each outcome between 1-6. The document also discusses calculating the probability of specific outcomes occurring by taking the number of occurrences and dividing by the total number of observations.

Uploaded by

Hanna Galati
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

A coin is tossed.

Let X be the number of heads that


we throw.
X 1 2 3 4 5 6

P(x) = x 1/8 3/8 3/8 1/8 3/8 1/8

1. Find P(x ≤ 6)
2. Find the probability that X take an odd value.
3. Find the probability that X take an even value.
Probability Distribution of
Discrete Random Variables

Objectives:
 Illustrate a probability distribution for a discrete random variable
and its properties.
 Compute probabilities corresponding to a given random variable.
 Construct the probability mass function of a discrete random
variable and its histogram.
Suppose you roll a die twenty times. There are twenty possible
outcomes. Let’s record!
Possible face of the die after No. of times the face appeared
each roll (x) [(x):n]
1 3
2 7
3 4
4 3
5 2
6 1

1. What is the chance that when a die is rolled, the number 2 will
appear? The number 5?
2. How can we show graphically the probability of the occurrence of an
event?
Since the die is rolled 20 times, the total number
of occurrences (N) in the experiment is 20
observations [N = 20]

From the table, the number of times the possible


outcome “2” (x = 2) has occurred [(x):n] is 7 or
[(2):7]

The chance that a “2” will appear when a die is


rolled is the quotient of dividing the number of
occurrences associated to the value [(x):n] by the
total number of observations N. Thus, we get
7/20. This is also known as the probability of
occurrence.
The probability mass function for this random
variable is given by
To represent the distribution graphically, we can use
a histogram.
- a graphical display of data using bars of
different heights.
The histogram is constructed by doing the following:
1. Assign the probability values on the vertical grid.
2. Assign the discrete random variable (x) on the
horizontal grid.
3. Use thin lines or sticks to replace the thick bars.
Let us come up with the following table for the die
rolling experiment.

Outcomes No. of P(x)


(x) occurrences
[(x):n]
1 3 3/20 0.15
2 7 7/20 0.35
3 4 4/20 0.20
4 3 3/20 0.15
5 2 2/20 0.10
6 1 1/20 0.05
Points per game!
No. of Game Points per game
played Kenneth Joshua

1 2 0
2 3 16
3 5 14
4 10 12
5 15 8
6 12 6
7 8 3
8 5 1
TOTAL

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