text: questions help science? what does it mean to say that two events are independent?  how can you figure out the probability that two independent events will occur together?  suppose you are walking throught the school and there is an equal probability that each person you meet wii be  male or a female. you have passed 30 people, 12 of them male and 18 of them female. what is the probability that the next person you meet will be male? independent means that the outcome of one event does not impact the probability of the outcome of the other event.  the combined probability of two independent event is the product of the individual probabilities.  the people problem is not exactly independent.  if you are walking in the same direction, you won't pass the same people again.  if it were truly independent, the probability of the next person being male would be 50%.  since it is not, the probability is higher than 50%, depending on how many people are in your school.