https://scales.arabpsychology.com/stats/what-is-the-difference-between-probability-and-proportion/
Dear Ammar Kuti Nasser,
Proportion is a fraction of something that has a certain property. For example, about 65% of a city's population became rich in 2024. This is a stated fact to an extent. It is not an expected outcome; it is an existing reality.
Probability is an expectation of your outcome that is stated as an expected probable outcome over expected total outcomes. For example, if the city has 100 members and containers 65 people are rich, the probability of selecting one in the city to be rich is determined as the total possible expected number of rich (65) over the total population (100), thus implying that if you select one in the city, the possibility of the person to be rich is (65/100) = 0.65. Probability goes with the potential possibility of an expected outcome; and still, it is stated as a fraction or in percentage. However, on the other side, the selected person can also be a non-rich person with a probability of (35/100) = 0.35.
Hope this will make you understand the difference between Proportio and Probability.
GL with regards,
Probability refers to the likelihood of an event occurring, ranging from 0 to 1, while proportion refers to the relative size of a part compared to the whole, often expressed as a fraction or percentage. Probability is used in the context of uncertain events, and proportion is used to describe a part of a known total.
Proportion : as sais above this is only the ratio of a part related to the whole
Probability : From mathematical point of view this is measure (on a topological space) measuring the chances that a future event occurs. It can be estimated from past experience by a ratio like the Maximum Likelihood Estimate which is a proportion : e.g. k positive experiments above n experiments lead to an estimation of k/n that a new experiment be positive again.
The proportion is just a fraction. Probability is a measure over the space of elementary events. You can use probability to study random events that have not yet happened (apriori). You can also use the term proportion, but after a series of trials (aposteriori). But I would limit myself to the term probability when studying random events, processes, etc.
Probability
- Theoretical measure of the likelihood of an event.
- Predicts what could happen.
- Formula: Favorable outcomes /Total outcomes
Proportion
- Observed ratio from actual data.
- Describes what has happened.
- Formula: Observed occurrences /Total observations.
Probability is the possibility of happening of an event and the Proportion is how frequently something is happening.
I am afraid that, theoritically, "Possibility" in the sense of the "possibility" theory is a another concept: this is an extention of the probability theory linked with fuzzy sets. Therefore "probabilty" and "possibility" should not be mixed up even if a "possibility" can be used to define an upper bound of a "probability". But here we are far from a simple proportion!
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