Exercise 1.45

Let A and B be events. The symmetric difference AB is defined to be the set of all elements that are in A or B but not both. In logic and engineering, this event is also called the XOR (exclusive or) of A and B. Show that

P(AB) = P(A) + P(B) 2P(A B)

directly using the axioms of probability.

Answers

We have

B A = (A B) (A B).

By problem 44,

P(B A) = P(A B) P(A B) = P(A) + P(B) P(A B) P(A B) = P(A) + P(B) 2P(A B)
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2021-12-05 00:00
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