Experiment (probability theory)

Part of a series on statistics
Probability theory
Probability Axioms Determinism System Indeterminism Randomness
Probability space Sample space Event Collectively exhaustive events Elementary event Mutual exclusivity Outcome Singleton Experiment Bernoulli trial Probability distribution Bernoulli distribution Binomial distribution Exponential distribution Normal distribution Pareto distribution Poisson distribution Probability measure Random variable Bernoulli process Continuous or discrete Expected value Variance Markov chain Observed value Random walk Stochastic process
Complementary event Joint probability Marginal probability Conditional probability
Independence Conditional independence Law of total probability Law of large numbers Bayes' theorem Boole's inequality
Venn diagram Tree diagram
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In probability theory, an experiment or trial (see below) is any procedure that can be infinitely repeated and has a well-defined set of possible outcomes, known as the sample space.^[1] An experiment is said to be random if it has more than one possible outcome, and deterministic if it has only one. A random experiment that has exactly two (mutually exclusive) possible outcomes is known as a Bernoulli trial.^[2]

When an experiment is conducted, one (and only one) outcome results— although this outcome may be included in any number of events, all of which would be said to have occurred on that trial. After conducting many trials of the same experiment and pooling the results, an experimenter can begin to assess the empirical probabilities of the various outcomes and events that can occur in the experiment and apply the methods of statistical analysis.