Understanding Mutually Exclusive Events and their Probability in Math

Mutually Exclusive

P(A or B) = P(A) + P(B)

Mutually exclusive events are events that cannot occur at the same time. In other words, when one event occurs, the other event cannot occur. For example, when flipping a coin, the events of getting heads or tails are mutually exclusive because only one of the events can occur in a single flip. Another example is rolling a dice and getting a 1 or getting a 6, as these events are also mutually exclusive.

Mathematically, the probability of two mutually exclusive events occurring is the sum of the probabilities of each event. For instance, if the probability of getting heads when flipping a coin is 0.5 and the probability of getting tails is also 0.5, then the probability of getting either heads or tails is:

P(heads or tails) = P(heads) + P(tails)
P(heads or tails) = 0.5 + 0.5
P(heads or tails) = 1

Therefore, the probability of getting either heads or tails in a single coin flip is 1 or 100%.

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