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CHAPTER 3 (Week 5)
DISCRETE PROBABILITY
DISTRIBUTION
Dr.S.Rajalingam
L 1 Binomial and Poisson Distribution
Remark: Chapter 2 (Printed Notes)

DISCRETE PROBABILITY
DISTRIBUTION
Learning Objectives:
:

At the end of the lecture, you will be able to :

- select an appropriate discrete probability distribution
* binomial distribution or
* poisson distribution
to calculate probabilities in specific application
- calculate the probability, means and variance for each
of the above discrete distributions presented
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DISCRETE PROBABILITY
DISTRIBUTION
Syllabus
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Bernoulli Distribution
Binomial Distribution
Geometric Distribution
Negative Binomial Distribution
Poisson Distribution

BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION Bin(n,p)

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BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION Bin(n,p)

A random variable that has a binomial distribution with parameters
n and p, is denoted by X ~ Bin (n,p)

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Example 1
In the experiment of tossing a fair coin for 10 times,
X is a random variable, the number of head.
(a) What is the pmf of X ?
(b) Find the probability the head will appear exactly 5 times
(c) What is the probability no head?
(d) Find the mean and the variance of X.
1. Fixed number of trail.
2. Independent
3. Outcome have 2 categories H & T
4. The probability of getting H is same in all the rail.
Therefore Bin (n,p)
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Example 2 :
Let X Bin (8,0.45)
Find
(a ) P( X 2)
(b) P( X 1)
(c) Mean X and var( X )
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Poisson Distribution, X ~ P(l)

e l l x
f ( x) P ( X x)
, x 0 ,1, 2 ,3,...
x!
where l is the mean number of occurrences in that
interval. ( per unit time or per unit area)

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Mean and Variance:

E( X ) V ( X ) l

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Poisson Probability Distribution

Useful to model the number of times that a certain event
occurs per unit of time, distance, or volume.
Examples of application of Poisson probability distribution
i) The number of telephone calls received by an
office during a given day
ii) The number of defects in a five-foot-long iron rod.

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Example 1
Annes answering machine receives about 6
calls between 8am to 10am. What is the
probability Anne will receives more than 1
call in the next 15 minutes?

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Example 1
Annes answering machine receives about 6
calls between 8am to 10am. What is the
probability Anne will receives more than 1
call in the next 15 minutes?

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Example 1
Annes answering machine receives about 6 calls
between 8am to 10am. What is the probability Anne will
receives more than 1 call in the next 15 minutes?

l is the mean number of occurrences in that interval.

Solution:

Let X = the number of calls Anne receives in 15 minutes.

The interval of interest is 15 minutes.
The random variable X takes on the values 0, 1, 2,
If Anne receives, on the average, 6 telephone calls in 2 hours,
Then how many call Anne will be receive in 15 minutes???
Answer is 1/8 = 0.75 calls in 15 minutes, on the average.
So, it means that l = 0.75.
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Example 2
Suppose X has a Poisson distribution a
mean of 5. Determine the following.
(a) P(X = 0);
(b) P(X < 3);
(c) P( X 4)
(d) What is the mean and the standard
deviation of X?
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Exercise 1
A Professor estimates the probability that he will receive at
least one telephone call at home during the hours of 5pm to
7pm on a weekday to be 2/3. Use the formulas for
computing binomial probabilities to answer the following
questions:
(a)

(b)

DYS

What is the probability that he will receive at least

one call on all five of the next five weekday nights?
What is the probability that he will not receive a call on any of the
next five weekday nights?

(c) What is the probability that he will receive a call on at least four of
the next five weekday nights?
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Exercise 2

DYS

At the Mc Donald drive-thru window of food establishment,

it was found that during slower periods of the day, vehicles
visited at the rate of 12 per hour. Determine the probability
that
(a) no vehicles visiting the drive-thru within a ten-minute
interval during one of these slow periods;
(b)

only 2 vehicles visiting the drive-thru within a tenminute interval during one of these slow periods; and

(c) at least three vehicles visiting the drive-thru within a

ten-minute interval during one of these slow periods.
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END

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