Probability Cheat Sheet

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# Probability Cheat Sheet

## Random Variable

Random variables are usually denoted with a capital letter, for example $X$.

### Discrete

A discrete random variable is a variable that can be a value of a countable domain $D$. For example, the outcome of a dice throw.

## Probability Distributions

### Discrete

The probability distribution for a discrete random variable $X$ is a value associated to each value of $X$. For example, for a dice throw the probability distribution is $1/6$ for each side.

## Joint Probability

### Discrete

The joint probability distribution of two random variables $X$ and $Y$ is denoted by $P(X, Y)$ or $P(X \cap Y)$. The probability of $X = x$ and $Y = y$ is denoted by $P(X = x, Y = y)$.

### Law of Total Probability

The law of total probability states that:

$P(X = x) = \sum_{y \in D_Y} P(X = x, Y = y)$

Which holds even when $X$ and $Y$ are not independent.

## Conditional Probability

### Discrete

The conditional probability distribution of a random variable $X$ on random variable $Y$ is denoted by $P(X \mid Y)$. It assumes the value of $Y$ is determined a priori. It can be defined as a function of joint probabilities:

$P(X \mid Y) = \frac{P(X, Y)}{P(Y)}$

## OR Probability

### Discrete

The probability distribution of either one of two random variables $X$ or $Y$ is denoted by $P(X \cup Y)$. It can be defined in terms of joint probability:

$P(X \cup Y) = P(X) + P(Y) - P(X \cap Y)$

## Expectation

### Discrete

Let $X$ be a discrete random variable with possible values $x_1, \cdots, x_n$ with probability distribution $p_1, \cdots, p_n$. The expected value of $X$, denoted by $E[X]$ is defined as:

$E[X] = \sum_{i = 1}^{n} p_i x_i$

## Likelihood

### Discrete

Let $X$ be a discrete random variable, with probability distribution depending on a parameter $\theta$ (not necessarily a scalar). For example, a biased coin could have probability distribution $p_H = \theta$ and $p_T = 1 - \theta$.

The likelihood is a function of a specific value $x$ from domain $D$ and $\theta$, denoted as $\mathcal{L}(\theta | x)$, representing the probability of $X$ assuming the value of $x$.

$\mathcal{L}(\theta | x) = P_{\theta}(X = x)$

For the biased coin above, suppose $\theta = 0.6$. The $\mathcal{L}(\theta | H) = 0.6$.