An Introduction to Conditional Probability
Imagine the last time you entered to win a raffle at a fair or carnival. You look at your ticket, 562104. As they begin to call off the winning ticket, you hear 562, but everyone has the same first 3 digits. Then 1 and 0 are called off. You know that excited feeling you get? Did you know there is a lot of math behind that instinct you feel that you might just win the prize?
Now imagine those times when you are waiting to get your latest grade back on your English test. Youβre not sure how you did, but as your teacher starts to talk about test results, her body language just isnβt positive. She keeps saying things like βWell, you guys tried hard.β
Again, there is significant math happening behind that sinking feeling you now have. In this task, you will be investigating how probability can be used to formalize the way real-life conditions change the way we look at the world.
Thinking about a winning raffle ticket, the fact that the probability in a given situation can change greatly affects how a situation is approached and interpreted. This sort of idea is prevalent across society, not just in games of chance. Knowledge of conditional probability can inform us about how one event or factor affects another.