Conditional Probability

Probability given certain constraints

1-minute read

When working with probabilities previously, we would have assumed that we are asked to state the probability of an event given that we are working with the entire universal set, $U$. Thus, for an event $A$, the probability is: $$ \begin{equation}\begin{aligned} P(A)=\frac{n(A)}{n(U)}\\ \end{aligned}\end{equation} $$

We can think of this as the conditional probability of $A$ given $U$: $$ \begin{equation}\begin{aligned} P(A|U)=\frac{n(A)}{n(U)}\\ \end{aligned}\end{equation} $$

What if we are given only the elements of the set $B$? The conditional probability of $A$ given $B$ would thus be: $$ \begin{equation}\begin{aligned} P(A|B)=\frac{n(A\cap B)}{n(B)}\\ \end{aligned}\end{equation} $$

This conditional probability is therefore the ratio of the elements in $A$ which are also in $B$ to the elements in $B$. This can be written as probabilities: $$ \begin{equation}\begin{aligned} P(A|B)=\frac{P(A\cap B)}{P(B)}\\ \end{aligned}\end{equation} $$

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