Video Transcript
What is the probability of
selecting at random a prime number from the numbers eight, nine, 20, 19, three, and
15?
In order to answer this question,
we’ll need to recall two things, firstly, how we find the probability of an event,
and, secondly, what a prime number is. In order to calculate the
probability, then we can use the formula to calculate the probability of an event 𝐴
as the number of elements in event 𝐴 divided by the number of elements in a sample
space 𝑆. We may also see this formula
written as the probability of an event is equal to the number of favorable outcomes
over the total number of outcomes. Here, we’re trying to calculate the
probability of selecting a prime number. A prime number is a number that has
exactly two factors, one and itself.
So let’s consider the list of
numbers that we were given. The first three values eight, nine,
and 20 are not prime because they have more than two factors. Next, 19 and three are both prime
numbers. However, 15 is not a prime
number. When it comes to using the formula
then, the number of prime numbers that we have is two. That’s three and 19. The value on the denominator will
be six, since there were six numbers in total. It’s always good to simplify our
fractions where we can. And so we can give the answer that
the probability of selecting a prime number from the given list of numbers is
one-third.
