Past exam of the year 1 of the computer science course of the University of Oxford / 2014 / Discrete mathematics, continuous mathematics and probability / 7 / a / i

Let $(B_i)$ be a finite or countable partition of a sample space into events of positive probability. The events $A\cap B_i$ are disjoint and their union is $A$. Countable additivity and the definition of conditional probability therefore give the law of total probabilityCells of zero probability contribute zero through $\mathbb{P}(A\cap B_i)$ and can be omitted rather than assigning an undefined conditional probability.