Probability - chapter 16

The study of probability arises naturally in a variety of situations. Games in which we flip coins, roll dice, spin spinners, or pick cards all have an element of chance. We don’t know what the spinner will land on, and we don’t know how the dice will roll. This element of chance adds excitement to the game and makes it easy to design class activities and problems that present probability in a way that can be fun for students to learn.

If probability were used only in analyzing games of chance, it would not be an important subject. But probability has far wider applications. In business and finance, probability can be used in determining how best to allocate assets. In medicine, probability can be used to determine how likely it is that a person actually has a certain disease, given the outcomes of test results.