Probability Distribution
Explore the concept of probability distribution for random variables, including how to calculate probabilities in practical examples like coin flips and dice rolls. Understand how different outcomes affect the distribution and grasp uniform and non-uniform distributions within the context of algorithmic complexity analysis.
We'll cover the following...
Probability Distribution
When working with random variables, we can ask questions like "what is the probability that X equals 2 heads in three coin flips, or that Y equals a value greater than 2 on a die roll?". We'll work these example scenarios below.
Example 1
If we flip a coin three times, the sample space will look something like below:
Now what is P(X=2)? In other words, what is the probability that X (the number of heads in three coin flips) is exactly equal to two? The outcomes that satisfy exactly two heads include: HHT, HTH and THH. Therefore we can say
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