BINOMIAL PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

 Introduction

The binomial probability distribution which is most widely used distribution in two outcomes situations,
was discovered by the Swiss Mathematician Jakob Bernoulli whose main work on probability, the Ars
Conjectandi ( the art of conjecturing) was published posthumously in Basel.

 Binomial Experiment

A binomial experiment (also known as a Bernoulli trial) is a statistical experiment that has the following
properties:

 The experiment consists of n repeated trials.

 Each trial can result in just two possible outcomes. We call one of these outcomes a success and the other, a
failure.
 The probability of success, denoted by P, is the same on every trial.
 The trials are independent; that is, the outcome on one trial does not affect the outcome on other trials.

Consider the following statistical experiment. You flip a coin 2 times and count the number of times the coin lands
on heads. This is a binomial experiment because:

 The experiment consists of repeated trials. We flip a coin 2 times.

 Each trial can result in just two possible outcomes - heads or tails.
 The probability of success is constant - 0.5 on every trial.
 The trials are independent; that is, getting heads on one trial does not affect whether we get heads on other
trials.

Notation

The following notation is helpful, when we talk about binomial probability.

 x: The number of successes that result from the binomial experiment.

 n: The number of trials in the binomial experiment.
 P: The probability of success on an individual trial.
 Q: The probability of failure on an individual trial. (This is equal to 1 - P.)
 b(x; n, P): Binomial probability - the probability that an n-trial binomial experiment results
inexactly x successes, when the probability of success on an individual trial is P.
 n Cr: The number of combinations of n things, taken r at a time.
  Binomial Distribution

A binomial random variable is the number of successes x in n repeated trials of a binomial experiment.

The probability distribution of a binomial random variable is called a binomial distribution (also known as
a Bernoulli distribution).

Suppose we flip a coin two times and count the number of heads (successes). The binomial random variable is the
number of heads, which can take on values of 0, 1, or 2. The binomial distribution is presented below.

Number of heads Probability

0 0.25
1 0.50
2 0.25

The binomial distribution has the following properties:

 The mean of the distribution (μx) is equal to n * P .

 The variance (σ2x) is n * P * ( 1 - P ).
 The standard deviation (σx) is sqrt[ n * P * ( 1 - P ) ].

 Binomial Probability

The binomial probability refers to the probability that a binomial experiment results in exactly xsuccesses. For
example, in the above table, we see that the binomial probability of getting exactly one head in two coin flips is
0.50.

Given x, n, and P, we can compute the binomial probability based on the following formula:

Binomial Formula. Suppose a binomial experiment consists of n trials and results in x successes. If the
probability of success on an individual trial is P, then the binomial probability is:

b(x; n, P) =  nCx  Px  (q)n - x

  Example 1 A die is tossed 3 times. What is the probability of

(a) No fives turning up?

(b) 1 five?

(c) 3 fives?

Answer

This is a binomial distribution because there are only 2 possible outcomes (we get a 5 or we don't).

Now, n = 3 for each part. Let X = number of fives appearing.

(a) Here, x = 0.

(b) Here, x = 1.

(c) Here, x = 3.

X 0 1 3
f(x) 0.5787 0.34722 4.6296 x 10-3

 Example 2 A manufacturer of metal pistons finds that on the average, 12% of his pistons are
rejected because they are either oversize or undersize. What is the probability that a batch of 10
pistons will contain

(a) no more than 2 rejects? (b) at least 2 rejects?

Answer

Let X = number of rejected pistons

(In this case, "success" means rejection!)

Here, n =  10, p =  0.12, q =  0.88.

(a)
No rejects

One reject

Two rejects

So the probability of getting no more than 2 rejects is:

 Example 3 An event has the probability p = 3/8. Find the complete binomial distribution for
n = 5 trials.

Answer

Here p = 3/8 so that q= 1- p = 5/8; and n = 5.

Hence the desired probabilities are the successive terms in the binomial expansion of (5/8 + 3/8) 5, i.e.

[ (5 / 8)5 + (5 C 1) (5 / 8)4 (3 / 8) + (5 C 2) (5 / 8)3 (3 / 8)2 + (5 C 3) (5 / 2)2 (3 / 8)3 + (5 C 4) (5 / 8) (3 /8)4 +

( 3/ 8)5 ]

i.e. 1/(8)5 [ (5)5 + 5.(5)4 (3) + 10.(5)3 (3)2 + 10.(5)2 (3)3+ 5.(5) (3)4 + (3)5 ]

i.e. 1/32768 [ 3125 + 9375 + 11250 + 6750 + 2025 + 243 ]

i.e. [ 0.0954 + 0.2861 + 0.3433 + 0.2060 + 0.0618 + 0.0074 ]

We can now write these probabilities in the form of a probability table as below:

x 0 1 2 3 4 5
P(X=x) 0.0954 0.2861 0.3433 0.2060 0.0618 0.0074
  Example 4 Suppose a die is tossed 5 times. What is the probability of getting exactly 2 fours?

Solution:  This is a binomial experiment in which the number of trials is equal to 5, the number of successes
is equal to 2, and the probability of success on a single trial is 1/6 or about 0.167. Therefore, the binomial probability
is:

b(2; 5, 0.167) = 5C2 * (0.167)2 * (0.833)3 

b(2; 5, 0.167) = 0.161

 Binomial Frequency Distribution:

If the binomial probability distribution is multiplied by N, the nudice are thmber of experiments or
sets, the resulting distribution is known as the binomial frequency distribution. Thus the expected
frequency of x successes in N experiment is N. (nCx) p xqn-x. It should be noted that the n independent
trials constitute one experiment or one set.

 Example 1: Six dice are thrown 729 times. How many times do you expect at least
three dice to show a five or a six?

Solution: The probability of getting a 5 or a 6 with one die is p = 2/6. Since 6 dice are thrown and
there are 729 sets, the binomial frequency distribution is given by

729 2 1 5
(3+ 3 )
Hence the expected nuber of times at least 3 dice showing 5 or 6

= 729 [ 6 x 6−x ]
1 2
( x +a ) =∑ 6 ( )( ) ( )
n

x=3 x 3 3

=729[ 6 1 2 1 2 1 2 1 ]
+ 6 + 6
( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )( )( ) ( )
3 3 3 4 3 3 5 3 3
+
3

= 729 [ 160 + 60 + 12 + 1 ] = 233

( 3)