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In probability theory and statistics, the empirical probability, relative frequency, or experimental probability of an event is the ratio of the number of outcomes in which a specified event occurs to the total number of trials, [1] i.e. by means not of a theoretical sample space but of an actual experiment.
Under the frequency interpretation of probability, it is assumed that as the length of a series of trials increases without bound, the fraction of experiments in which a given event occurs will approach a fixed value, known as the limiting relative frequency. [7] [8] This interpretation is often contrasted with Bayesian probability.
In probability theory, an experiment or trial (see below) is any procedure that can be infinitely repeated and has a well-defined set of possible outcomes, known as the sample space. [1] An experiment is said to be random if it has more than one possible outcome, and deterministic if it has only one.
The probability of an event is a number between 0 and 1; the larger the probability, the more likely an event is to occur. [note 1] [1] [2] This number is often expressed as a percentage (%), ranging from 0% to 100%. A simple example is the tossing of a fair (unbiased) coin.
John Venn, who provided a thorough exposition of frequentist probability in his book, The Logic of Chance [1]. Frequentist probability or frequentism is an interpretation of probability; it defines an event's probability as the limit of its relative frequency in infinitely many trials (the long-run probability). [2]
Frequency distribution: a table that displays the frequency of various outcomes in a sample. Relative frequency distribution: a frequency distribution where each value has been divided (normalized) by a number of outcomes in a sample (i.e. sample size). Categorical distribution: for discrete random variables with a finite set of values.
As the number of trials increases, the relative frequencies approach their respective theoretical probabilities, demonstrating the Law of Large Numbers. For example, a fair coin toss is a Bernoulli trial. When a fair coin is flipped once, the theoretical probability that the outcome will be heads is equal to 1 ⁄ 2.
Epistemic or subjective probability is sometimes called credence, as opposed to the term chance for a propensity probability. Some examples of epistemic probability are to assign a probability to the proposition that a proposed law of physics is true or to determine how probable it is that a suspect committed a crime, based on the evidence ...