The Collaborative International Dictionary
Probability \Prob`a*bil"i*ty\, n.; pl. Probabilities. [L. probabilitas: cf. F. probabilit['e].]
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The quality or state of being probable; appearance of reality or truth; reasonable ground of presumption; likelihood.
Probability is the appearance of the agreement or disagreement of two ideas, by the intervention of proofs whose connection is not constant, but appears for the most part to be so.
--Locke. -
That which is or appears probable; anything that has the appearance of reality or truth.
The whole life of man is a perpetual comparison of evidence and balancing of probabilities.
--Buckminster.We do not call for evidence till antecedent probabilities fail.
--J. H. Newman. -
(Math.) Likelihood of the occurrence of any event in the doctrine of chances, or the ratio of the number of favorable chances to the whole number of chances, favorable and unfavorable. See 1st Chance, n., 5.
Syn: Likeliness; credibleness; likelihood; chance.
Wiktionary
n. (plural of probability English)
Usage examples of "probabilities".
The possibility of enhancing human (and machine) intelligence by linking them together organically opens enormous and exciting probabilities, so exciting that Dr.
Yet the truth is that we can assign probabilities to some of the changes that lie in store for us, especially certain large structural changes, and there are ways to use this knowledge in designing personal stability zones.
We must sensitize them to the possibilities and probabilities of tomorrow.
We can only systematize and deepen our assumptions and attempt to assign probabilities to them.
We are not, therefore, as helpless in dealing with future probabilities as most people assume.
We are, in short, witnessing a perfectly extraordinary thrust toward more scientific appraisal of future probabilities, a ferment likely, in itself, to have a powerful impact on the future.
Now, we all know that probabilities are always numbers between 0 and 1—equivalently, when expressed as percentages, probabilities are numbers between 0 and 100.
Well, recall from Chapter 8 that this constraint arises from counting the number of independent directions in which a string can vibrate, and requiring that this number be just right to ensure that quantum-mechanical probabilities have sensible values.
In devising theories, physicists often start by working in a purely classical language that ignores quantum probabilities, wave functions, and so forth—a language that would be perfectly intelligible to physicists in the age of Maxwell and even in the age of Newton—and then, subsequently, overlaying quantum concepts upon the classical framework.
By this measure, quantum mechanics and the theories of relativity are deep beyond anyone's wildest expectations: Wave functions, probabilities, quantum tunneling, the ceaseless roiling energy fluctuations of the vacuum, the smearing together of space and time, the relative nature of simultaneity, the warping of the spacetime fabric, black holes, the big bang.
There are an infinity of probabilities, all existing in the same space and time, but separated by quasi-dimensional spaces.
Traveling from one to the other of these probabilities involves finding the weak spots in the quasi-dimensional spaces, the places where the probabilities almost touch.
Once these are found, equipment is erected to weaken these places further until, finally, a bubble develops between the two probabilities, a bubble through which you can pass.
From there, they spread out in both directions on the plane of probabilities, defeating one counter-Earth after another.
When the aliens tuned in tonight, Salsbury would lock their beam with the vacii beam and open the bubble between probabilities to the passage of living tissue.