Course introduction

What is probability?

Source: Merriam-Webster

Pierre-Simon Laplace

Which one is more likely?

Roll one (six-sided) die 🎲

• Getting an even number
• Getting an odd number

Roll two dice 🎲 🎲

• Getting a sum of 7
• Getting a sum of 12

Roll three dice 🎲 🎲 🎲

• Getting a sum of 11
• Getting a sum of 12

“Probability is common sense reduced to calculation.”

Pierre-Simon Laplace

What is statistics?

The science of collecting, analyzing, presenting, and interpreting data.

Airline travelers’ club

• An airline offers an executive club and claim that 10% of its customers would qualify for the membership.
• You suspect it is actually less than 10%.
• You randomly selected 1000 customers, and found 91 of them would qualify.
• Is the airline’s premise correct?