Basic probability for machine learning
Probability provides information about the likelihood of an event occurring. In this field, there are several key terms that are important to understand:
- Trial or experiment: An action that results in a certain outcome with a certain likelihood
- Sample space: This encompasses all potential outcomes of a given experiment
- Event: This denotes a non-empty portion of the sample space
Therefore, in technical terms, probability is a measure of the likelihood of an event occurring when an experiment is conducted.
In this very simple case, the probability of event A with one outcome is equal to the chance of event A divided by the chance of all possible events. For example, in flipping a fair coin, there are two outcomes with the same chance: heads and tails. The chance of having heads will be 1/(1+1) = ½.
In order to calculate the probability, given an event, A, with n outcomes and a sample space, S, the probability of...