As we people enjoy stories, let's learn probability through a story.
Once upon a time in the kingdom of Probabia, King Kim ruled and people in his kingdom lived prosperous lives. He had four sons: Prince Aman, Prince Ben, Prince Charles, and Prince David.
One day, King Kim fell gravely ill and began contemplating who should succeed him as the ruler of Probabia. He wanted to be impartial and give each son an equal chance of inheriting the throne. However, he knew that life often brings uncertainties.
To determine the probability of each son becoming the next ruler, the king decided to use a special Orb. This orb had four equally sized sections, each representing one of his sons.
He gathered the sons and explained the plan.He spun the orb, and the section it landed on would determine the future ruler.
As the orb spun, the room filled with anticipation, for they knew that uncertainty was part of life's game.
The orb started to slow down, and the uncertainty in the room grew.
Who would it choose?
What would the future hold?
The orb finally came to a halt, but the moment before it did was a mix of excitement and nervousness.
The section it pointed to was Prince Ben. The room erupted into a mix of cheers and contemplative silence.
The uncertainty had become certainty for that moment, and Prince Ben’s 25% chance of inheriting the throne was changed to 100%.
This showcased the principles of probability as no one knows who will be the next king of Kingdom Probabia.
So let’s extract the definition of probability from above story :
"Probability defines the chances that an uncertain even will occur or it meansure the likelihood of an event to occur."
So in above story every Prince have probability to become next King is 25% i.e. (1/4) and next King will be Prince Ben is totally uncertain.
Top comments (1)
Great article. But probability so much more interesting. I really wish it would be taught better, somehow (I’m not sure how exactly though), for folks to understand it better.
For instance: if the weather lady/dude says that there’s an 80% chance of rain tomorrow, most of us assume there is pretty much a ”CERTAINTY” (plz forgive the “YELLING”) of rain! Then, I guess we get mad for dressing up in boots and taking umbrellas, yet in the end, often, the rain doesn’t appear.
This is why I love Nate Silver’s [ fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/n... ] analyses of US politics and other topics! For instance, in the 2016 election, his probabilistic averages of national polls allowed a wider prediction/chance for Trump to win, versus most polls’ assumption of certainty for H. Clinton! 😐🤷♂️