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In combinatorics, the rule of product or multiplication principle is a basic counting principle (a.k.a. the fundamental principle of counting). Stated simply, it is the intuitive idea that if there are a ways of doing something and b ways of doing another thing, then there are a · b ways of performing both actions. [1] [2]
This rule allows one to express a joint probability in terms of only conditional probabilities. [4] The rule is notably used in the context of discrete stochastic processes and in applications, e.g. the study of Bayesian networks, which describe a probability distribution in terms of conditional probabilities.
The rule of sum is an intuitive principle stating that if there are a possible outcomes for an event (or ways to do something) and b possible outcomes for another event (or ways to do another thing), and the two events cannot both occur (or the two things can't both be done), then there are a + b total possible outcomes for the events (or total possible ways to do one of the things).
A more general case of this concerns the distribution of the product of a random variable having a beta distribution with a random variable having a gamma distribution: for some cases where the parameters of the two component distributions are related in a certain way, the result is again a gamma distribution but with a changed shape parameter ...
It is possible to identify some key rules for each of those operators, resulting in different types of algebra for random variables, apart from the elementary symbolic algebra: Expectation algebra, Variance algebra, Covariance algebra, Moment algebra, etc.
[citation needed] One author uses the terminology of the "Rule of Average Conditional Probabilities", [4] while another refers to it as the "continuous law of alternatives" in the continuous case. [5] This result is given by Grimmett and Welsh [6] as the partition theorem, a name that they also give to the related law of total expectation.
To the right is the long tail, and to the left are the few that dominate (also known as the 80–20 rule). In statistics, a power law is a functional relationship between two quantities, where a relative change in one quantity results in a relative change in the other quantity proportional to the change raised to a constant exponent: one ...
For example, the conditional probability that someone unwell (sick) is coughing might be 75%, in which case we would have that P(Cough) = 5% and P(Cough|Sick) = 75 %. Although there is a relationship between A and B in this example, such a relationship or dependence between A and B is not necessary, nor do they have to occur simultaneously.