To determine the probability of an event not occurring, you can use the simplistic concept of complementary probability. The principle here is that the total probability of all possible outcomes must equal 1.
In this case, if the probability of the event happening (denoted as P(A)) is 0.42, we can denote the probability of the event not happening as P(Anot). The formula can be expressed as follows:
P(Anot) = 1 – P(A)
Now, substituting the value of P(A):
P(Anot) = 1 – 0.42
Calculating that gives us:
P(Anot) = 0.58
Therefore, the probability that the event will not happen is 0.58, or 58%. This means that if you were to repeat this event many times, you’d expect it not to happen about 58% of the time. Understanding these probabilities helps in various applications, from gambling to weather forecasting, where knowing the likelihood of events is crucial.