Introduction  (Page 2/5)

Counting formulas and the combinational formula

To repeat, the probability of event A , P(A), is simply the number of ways the experiment will result in A, relative to the total number of possible outcomes of the experiment.

As an equation this is:

When we looked at the sample space for flipping 3 coins we could easily write the full sample space and thus could easily count the number of events that met our desired result, e.g. x = 1 , where x is the random variable defined as the number of heads.

As we have larger numbers of items in the sample space, such as a full deck of 52 cards, the ability to write out the sample space becomes impossible.

We see that probabilities are nothing more than counting the events in each group we are interested in and dividing by the number of elements in the universe, or sample space. This is easy enough if we are counting sophomores in a Stat class, but in more complicated cases listing all the possible outcomes may take a life time. There are, for example, 36 possible outcomes from throwing just two six-sided dice where the random variable is the sum of the number of spots on the up-facing sides. If there were four dice then the total number of possible outcomes would become 1,296. There are more than 2.5 MILLION possible 5 card poker hands in a standard deck of 52 cards. Obviously keeping track of all these possibilities and counting them to get at a single probability would be tedious at best.

An alternative to listing the complete sample space and counting the number of elements we are interested in, is to skip the step of listing the sample space, and simply figuring out the number of elements in it and doing the appropriate division. If we are after a probability we really do not need to see each and every element in the sample space, we only need to know how many elements are there. Counting formulas were invented to do just this. They tell us the number of unordered subsets of a certain size that can be created from a set of unique elements. By unordered it is meant that, for example, when dealing cards, it does not matter if you got {ace, ace, ace, ace, king} or {king, ace, ace, ace, ace} or {ace, king, ace, ace, ace} and so on. Each of these subsets are the same because they each have 4 aces and one king.

Combinational formula

This is the formula that tells the number of unique unordered subsets of size x that can be created from n unique elements. The formula is read “n combinatorial x”. Sometimes it is read as “n choose x." The exclamation point "!" is called a factorial and tells us to take all the numbers from 1 through the number before the ! and multiply them together thus 4! is 1*2*3*4=24. By definition 0! = 1. The formula is called the Combinatorial Formula. It is also called the Binomial Coefficient, for reasons that will be clear shortly. While this mathematical concept was understood long before 1653, Blaise Pascal is given major credit for for his proof that he published in that year. Further, he developed a generalized method of calculating the values for combinatorials known to us as the Pascal Triangle. Pascal was one of the geniuses of an era of extraordinary intellectual advancement which included the work of Galileo, Rene Descartes, Isaac Newton, William Shakespeare and the refinement of the scientific method, the very rationale for the topic of this text.