CHAPTER 3

DISCRETE PROBABILITY
DISTRIBUTION
Week 5

L 1 – Binomial and Poisson

 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 discrete distributions presented
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 BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION Bin(n,p)
Bernoulli Trials: experiment with two possible outcomes, either
‘Success’ or ‘failure’.

Probability of success is given as p and probability of failure is 1- p

Requirements of a binomial experiment:

* n Bernoulli trials

* trials are independent

* that each trial have a constant probability p of success.

Example binomial experiment: tossing the same coin successively

and independently n times
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 BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION Bin(n,p)
A binomial random variable X associated with a binomial experiment
consisting of n trials is defined as:
X = the number of ‘success’ among n trials
The probability mass function of X is

n x
f ( x)  P( X  x)    p (1  p) n x , x  0, 1,, n
 x

Mean and Variance: E ( X )  np , V ( X )  np(1  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.
Solution:
 n  x n x
(a) P ( X  x)    p q x  0, 1, 2, . . . . .n
 x
10 
(b) P ( X  5)   (0.5) 5 (0.5) 5  0.246
5 
10 
(b) P ( X  0)   (0.5) 0 (0.5)10  0.0009756
0 
(d) E ( X )  np  5, Var ( X )  npq  2.5
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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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Solution :
Let X  Bin (8,0.45)
8 
 P( X  x)   (0.45) x (0.55)8 x , x  0, 1, 2, . . .8
 x
8 
(a ) P ( X  2)   (0.45) 2 (0.55) 6  0.157
 2
(b) P( X  1)  1  P( X  1)  1  P( X  0)
8 
 1   (0.45) 0 (0.55)8  1  0.00837  0.992
 0
(c) Mean X  np  3.6 and var( X )  npq  1.98

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 Poisson Probability Distribution
Conditions to apply the Poisson Probability distribution are:
1. x is a discrete random variable
2. The occurrences are random
3. The occurrences are independent
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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Poisson Probability Distribution, X ~ P()
The probability of x occurrences in an interval is

e  x
f ( x)  P( X  x)  , x  0,1,2,3,...
x!

where  is the mean number of occurrences in that interval.

( per unit time or per unit area)
Mean and Variance:

E( X )  V ( X )  

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 Poisson Process
•Carry out experiment to estimate  that represents the
mean number of events that occur in one unit time/ space
* The number of events X that occur in t units of time is
counted and  is estimated.
* If the number of events are independent and events cannot
occur simultaneously, then X follows a Poisson distribution.
A process that produces such events is a Poisson process
Let  denote the mean number of events that occur in one
unit of time.Let NT denote the number of events that are
observed to occur in T units of time or space, then
NT ~ P (T),
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Example 1
Anne’s answering machine receives about 6 calls between
8am to 10am. What is the probability Anne will receives
At least 1 call in the next 20 minutes?
Solution:

e   x
P( X  x)  , x  0,1,2,3,...
x!

Given for 120 min. 6 calls. It means that for 20 minutes she will receives 1 call.
So the  = 1.

e 110
Hence, P ( X  1)  1  P ( X  0)  1 
0!
 1 - 0.368  0.632

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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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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?

Solution:
50 e 5
(a) P ( X  0)   e 5  0.00673
0!
(b) P ( X  3)  P ( X  0)  P ( X  1)  P ( X  2)
50 e 5 51 e 5 5 2 e 5
    0.125
0! 1! 2!
(c) P ( X  4)  1  P ( X  3)  0.735
(d) E ( X )  Var ( X )  5

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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) What is the probability that he will receive at least

one call on all five of the next five weekday nights?

(b) 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

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 ten-

minute 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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