The empirical probability, also known as relative frequency, or experimental probability, is the ratio of the number of outcomes in which a specified event occurs to the total number of trials, not in a theoretical sample space but in an actual experiment. In a more general sense, empirical probability estimates probabilities from experience and observation.
In statistical terms, the empirical probability is an estimate or estimator of a probability. In simple cases, where the result of a trial only determines whether or not the specified event has occurred, modelling using a binomial distribution might be appropriate and then the empirical estimate is the maximum likelihood estimate. It is the Bayesian estimate for the same case if certain assumptions are made for the prior distribution of the probability. If a trial yields more information, the empirical probability can be improved on by adopting further assumptions in the form of a statistical model: if such a model is fitted, it can be used to derive an estimate of the probability of the specified event.
Read more about Empirical Probability: Mixed Nomenclature
Famous quotes containing the words empirical and/or probability:
“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”
—Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)
“The probability of learning something unusual from a newspaper is far greater than that of experiencing it; in other words, it is in the realm of the abstract that the more important things happen in these times, and it is the unimportant that happens in real life.”
—Robert Musil (1880–1942)