What are the two types of probability. How are they different?

1 Answer
Feb 23, 2016

In fact they are three. They differ how they interpret probability. They are not "types," just interpretations.

Explanation:

The two "types of probability" are: 1) interpretation by ratios, classical interpretation; interpretation by success, frequentist interpretation. The third one is called subjective interpretation.

Suppose you want to know the probability of getting a six after tossing a die, what do you do, you toss it several time and calculates how many times you have gotten the face you wished divided by the number of trials, or more easily, just 1/6; assuming you have a fair die.

What about something you cannot repeat, such as the probability of raining tomorrow, there is no way to repeat the experiment after it is done, nonetheless we still use term such as tomorrow will rain with probability x. In this case, we have a case of success based on information, not trials. A third way is when you cannot access the whole space, it is infinity. You can apply ratios, but you cannot divide by "maximum values." This case in general is studies by calculus, by mathematical tricks. This last case can be seen as special case of the first.