Before You Watch

Every day we encounter uncertainty – will the traffic be heavy today, what is the chance of rain, or is it likely the power grid will overload during a heat wave? Probability helps us to deal with this uncertainty by indicating the chances of events occurring. This improves both our understanding of a situation and our consequent decision making.

This video describes the concept of probability and how to obtain probabilities of events in relatively simple situations. It doesn’t build specifically on any of the previous videos; however, you may benefit from watching ‘Introduction to Statistics’ and ‘Random Variables’.

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Now What?

You should now be familiar with the concept of probability and how to obtain probabilities of events in relatively simple situations. In the videos 'Probability Trees' and 'Conditional Probability' you will see how important it is to consider all the possible outcomes, determine whether events are independent or not, and obtain conditional probabilities.

But When Am I Going to Use This?

We are surrounded by uncertainty or risk! Whether travelling, considering our health or pursuing scientific research, probability is embedded. Insurance companies determine risks (or probabilities) associated with insuring people. In finance one considers hedging to moderate risks (or probabilities) of certain undesirable outcomes. Decisions of guilt in the legal setting may be based on the balance of probabilities (how likely is it that someone under trial was guilty of the crime?). Inventory control and decisions about resource allocation (even for determining the number of staff required to be available at the local supermarket at a given time of the day, or in a hospital on certain days) are all examples of utilising probabilities of events.

Probability is used in quantum physics. At the very small scale, movements of particles become unpredictable; we therefore must use probability to determine the chance of a particular event happening, like for instance the probability that an atom will split and trigger an atomic explosion.

Whether you are an insurance company or government assessing risk from floods, a farmer predicting crop yields, a construction team developing a site, or a couple planning a wedding, you are likely to be making many decisions on a daily basis based on probabilities surrounding weather conditions, often without even realising it!

Other Links

The American Meteorological Society talks about ‘Enhancing weather information with probability forecasts’ and explains how these calculations are made, used and interpreted

Amazing Applications of Probability and Statistics  provides some interesting examples of reasoning based on probability and statistics to cope with uncertainty.

Maths is Fun provides an index of a range of topics covering probability and statistics. Select the 'Probability and Statistics Index' at the top of that site, then choose the area you wish to explore.

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