What is the difference between probability and possibility?
In: Mathematics
Possibility means something *can* happen. Probability is about how likely that thing is to happen.
For instance, it *is* possible for me to get a date with Yvonne Strahovski, but it is very, very, very *not* probable that I will.
On the other hand, the probability that I will need to buy more gasoline for my car as I use it is pretty much as close to 1 (100%) as possible… unless my car just outright dies on me, I will need another tank soon.
Same thing.
When you say “What is the possibility of this happening,” you are essentially saying “What is the probability of this thing happening.”
But in a different way, something being possible usually means that the chance of it happening is above 0%. Something being probable means that it has a significant probability, like 50%
Empirically? 1-50%.
If you are American, male, and under age 25, it is possible that you will be Super Bowl MVP one day. It’s phenomenally unlikely, but it doesn’t become impossible until you hit 45 or so.
If you American, male, and under age 25, it is probable that you don’t have cancer. It’s possible you have it, but only about 2% of cancer cases are diagnosed at that age, so it’s not terribly likely.
Possible means there’s a non-zero chance it could happen, no matter how small that chance is.
Probable means it is at least 51% likely.
There’s two possibilities if you buy a lottery ticket, either you win or you don’t. The probability of you winning is not 50% and it’s not even close
Probability refers to the likelihood or chance that a specific event will occur, usually expressed as a numerical value between 0 and 1, where 0 indicates impossibility and 1 indicates certainty. Possibility, on the other hand, simply suggests that something could potentially happen, without quantifying the likelihood. In essence, probability deals with quantifying the likelihood of an event occurring based on available information and statistical analysis, while possibility is a more general concept that acknowledges the potential for something to happen without specifying its likelihood.
Probability is the mathematical calculation of how likely something is to happen. Depending on the situation how a probability is calculated can vary.
A possibility is simply the abstract concept of the unknowable future and all the paths it can possibly take. For example if I’m driving and I’m coming to an intersection there is a possibility that someone will just blast through a red light and T bone me. The probability is low but the possibility is not non existent so I should adjust my speed to give me enough time to brake before crossing and once I pass the threshold where braking is impossible and visibility allows me to ascertain whether something like that is indeed going to happen or not I can safely accelerate and ensure I spend the least possible time in that danger zone.
To put it in another way when you’re doing something like rolling dice or pulling cards out of a deck there is the possibility that you get any one of the available numbers/cards, but the probability can theoretically be calculated and defined.
Possibility is anything that could happen.
Probability is how likely it is that a certain outcome happens.
Let’s say we flip one trillion coins.
The easy way to describe probability is that:
Many of those coin flips result in heads.
Many of those coin flips result in tails.
However many coins landed heads (or tails) out of how many flips (one trillion) is the probability.
The possibility is anything that could have happened in those coin flips.
Heads, tails, coin lands perfectly flat, coin getting wedged into the floor sideways, coin hits the floor and rolls out of sight to never be found again, someone runs by and grabs the coin out of the air. Imagine anything (increasingly absurd?), as a possibility.
While some of the (more absurd?) outcomes could (measurably) happen, the chances will likely indicate that the probability of those things happening is extremely low. It could be so low that it may not be considered rational to incorporate it into the possible outcomes, as it could include almost anything you could imagine. In this case, we would consider the two options to be heads or tales, and the other outcomes are too insignificant when measured against the heads/tails outcome.
There is also the law of large numbers that often gets applied to probability, which basically says that the closer to infinite attempts we should also see the actual measured outcomes fall more in line with the probabilities. Ex: if we flipped infinite coins. We would expect heads and tails to be very similar in number of outcomes.
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