Statistics is a branch of mathematics that involves collecting, analyzing, and presenting data.
A Statistical Experiment is a process that generates data and such a process can be repeated under similar
conditions. Examples are tossing a coin, tossing a die, drawing a ball from a box, determining whether a drug is effective
or not, measuring the effect of a substance on the growth of the particular plant, etc.
A Sample Space is a set of all possible outcomes of an experiment, which is denoted by S.
Example: Determine the sample space in each of the following experiment.
a. Tossing a coin once
b. Tossing a coin twice
c. Tossing a die once
d. Tossing a die twice
e. Giving a drug to two patients
Solution:
a. S = {H, T}
b. S = {HH, HT, TH, TT}
c. S = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}
d. S = {(1,1), (1,2), (1,3), (1,4), (1,5), (1,6), (2,1), (2,2), (2,3), (2,4), (2,5), (2,6), (3,1), (3,2), (3,3), (3,4), (3,5),
(3,6), (4,1), (4,2), (4,3), (4,4), (4,5), (4,6), (5,1), (5,2), (5,3), (5,4), (5,5), (5,6),(6,1),(6,2),(6,3), (6,4), (6,5),
(6,6)}
e. S = {SS, SF, FS, FF} where S stands for success and F stands for failure.
Figure 1. Tree Diagram of tossing a coin twice and tossing a die twice
A Sample point refers to each outcome on the sample space.
In the sample above (a), the sample points are H and T.
An Event is a subset of the sample space, denoted by capital letters as A, B, C, … , Z.
Example:
a. In tossing a coin twice, if A is the event of getting two heads, then A = {HH}
b. In tossing a coin twice, if B is the event of getting at least one head, then B = {HT, TH, HH}
A Null space or empty space is an event that contains no sample point, denoted by { } or ∅.
Example:
The event of rolling a 7 on a standard 6-sided die; since there is no “7” on a die, this event is considered an empty
space.
A Disjoint or mutually exclusive events are events that do not have sample points in common.
Example:
Consider the experiment tossing a die twice. Let A be the event of getting a total of 4 dots and B be the event of
getting a total of 3 dots. Then A = {(1,3), (2,2), (3,1)} and B = ((1,2), (2,1)}. Events A and B are disjoint or mutually
exclusive events.
