This chapter introduces probability, the study ofrandomness. Our focus, as will be no surprise by this point of the book, ison building a formal mathematical framework for analyzing random processes.We’ll begin with a definition of the basics of probability: defininga random process that chooses one particular outcome from aset of possibilities (any one of which occurs some fraction of the time).We’ll then analyze the likelihood that a particularevent occurs—in other words, asking whether thechosen outcome has some particular property that we care about. We thenconsider independence and dependence ofevents, and conditional probability: how, if at all, doesknowing that the randomly chosen outcome has one particular property changeour calculation of the probability that it has a different property?
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