Explain the difference between experimental and theoretical probability.

Answer 1

Theoretical probability is the probability of an outcome if the results were perfectly theoretical. Experimental probability is the actual results of an experiment.

For example, if you toss a fair coin 100 times, the theoretical number of times that the coin lands heads up is 50

Probability of landing heads - 0.5

Number of tosses - 100

Theoretical number of heads - 0.5 * 100 = 50

If you were to actually toss a coin 100 times, you may or may not get 50 heads. If you got 46 heads up, then your experimental probability would be 46 out of 100 or 0.46

So in this example

Theoretical probability of landing heads - 0.5

Experimental probability of landing heads - 0.46