Probability and risk in everyday life
Be able to reason about what is likely and unlikely, and compare odds.
Prerequisites
- APatterns and categoriesrequired
Everyday explanation
Some things happen certainly (the sun rises tomorrow). Some are impossible (you grow ten metres overnight). Most fall somewhere in between: likely (it rains sometime in October) or unlikely (you find a five-hundred-krona note on the street).
An odds can be high or low. With two equally sized red and blue balls in a bag, the chance of drawing red is half. With three red and one blue, the odds for red are higher.
An AI guesses with probabilities: «80 % cat, 20 % dog» means it is fairly sure — but not completely.
Interactive
Sort on a line: draw a line with «impossible» on the far left and «certain» on the far right. Place:
- It becomes Tuesday after Monday.
- You roll a six on a die.
- You roll a seven on a standard die.
- A dog learns to speak Swedish.
- It snows in Kiruna in January.
Discuss with someone: did you disagree? About what?
Mastery means
- Sort events from impossible to certain
- Compare two odds and explain which is greater
Sign in to do the exercises and build your mastery up.
Sources
- CS Unplugged (CC BY-SA 4.0) — CC BY-SA 4.0
- Wikipedia — Sannolikhet (CC BY-SA 4.0) — CC BY-SA 4.0