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In the die-tossing experiment discussed on page 62, we note that (|) = 2 5 whereas
() = 1 3 . That is, (|) = (), indicating that depends on . Now consider an
experiment in which 2 cards are drawn in succession from an ordinary deck, with
replacement. The events are dened as : the rst card is an ace, : the second card is a
spade. Since the rst card is replaced, our sample space for both the rst and the second draw
consists of 52 cards, containing 4 aces and 13 spades. Hence, (|) = 13 52 = 1 4 and ()
= 13 52 = 1 4 . That is,(|) = (). When this is true, the events and are said to be
independent. In other words, the occurrence of had no impact on the odds of occurrence of
. Here the occurrence of B is independent of the occurrence of A.