What is the difference between mutually exclusive and indepedent events?

Let's say that we have two events and we'll call them event A and event B. If these events were mutually exclusive then these events would not be able to occur at the same time. For example, if Real Madrid and Barcelona were playing each other in a football match, event A would be the event in which Real Madrid win the game and event B would be the event in which Barcelona win the game, these events are therefore said to be mutually exclusive as only one of these events could happen, it is impossible for both events to occur at the same time. For indepedent events, both occurences are completely unrelated and have no influence over each other and can both happen at the same time. For example, let event A be the event in which a boy buys an ice-cream and event B be the event in which it rains in Mexico. These events have no influence over each other whatsoever as rain in Mexico would not encourage/discourage a boy to buy an ice-cream and a boy buying an ice cream would not increase/decrease the probability of rain in Mexico and of course these events could both happen at the same time, i.e. they are independent of each other.

CS

Related Maths A Level answers

All answers ▸

Calculate dy/dx for y=x(x−1)


A medical test will be positive for 0.05% of people and negative for everyone else. Suppose a hospital will test 4000 patients each day. Use an appropriate approximation to find the probability that 5 people test positive tomorrow. (5SF)


The first term of an arithmetic series is a and the common difference is d. The 12th term is 66.5 and the 19th term is 98. Write down two equations in a and d then solve these simultaneous equations to find a and d.


How do I solve equations like 3sin^2(x) - 2cos(x) = 2