Complement

The complement of an event is the event that it does not occur, containing every outcome outside it.

The complement of an event AA, written AcA^c (read A complement), collects all outcomes in the sample space where AA does not happen. Its probability is P(Ac)=1P(A)P(A^c) = 1 - P(A), since an event and its complement together cover everything. For example, if the probability of rain is 0.3, the probability of no rain is 10.3=0.71 - 0.3 = 0.7. The complement rule is handy when at least one is easier to compute as 1 minus none.

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