Chapter 1

Some motivating examples and some fundamental concepts

This chapter consists of three sections. The first section is devoted to presenting a number of examples (25 to be precise), drawn from a broad spectrum of human activities. Their purpose is to demonstrate the wide applicability of probability (and statistics). In the formulation of these examples, certain terms, such as at random, average, data fitted by a line, event, probability (estimated probability, probability model), rate of success, sample, and sampling (sample size), are used. These terms are presently to be understood in their everyday sense and will be defined precisely later on.

In the second section, some basic terminology and fundamental quantities are introduced ...

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