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Poisson Practice

The document presents several word problems involving Poisson distributions to calculate probabilities related to events that occur with a given average rate, such as a life insurance salesman selling a certain number of policies per week, vehicles passing through a junction per hour, or radioactive particles emitted from a meteorite per minute. It asks the reader to use the Poisson distribution to find probabilities of obtaining specific values and ranges of values in samples related to these average rates, like the chance of selling a certain number of policies in a day or the likelihood of a given page containing a particular number of misprints.

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Ishtiaq Ahmed
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83 views2 pages

Poisson Practice

The document presents several word problems involving Poisson distributions to calculate probabilities related to events that occur with a given average rate, such as a life insurance salesman selling a certain number of policies per week, vehicles passing through a junction per hour, or radioactive particles emitted from a meteorite per minute. It asks the reader to use the Poisson distribution to find probabilities of obtaining specific values and ranges of values in samples related to these average rates, like the chance of selling a certain number of policies in a day or the likelihood of a given page containing a particular number of misprints.

Uploaded by

Ishtiaq Ahmed
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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A life insurance salesman sells on the average 3 life insurance policies per week.

Use
Poisson's law to calculate the probability that in a given week he will sell

a. Some policies
b. 2 or more policies but less than 5 policies.
c. Assuming that there are 5 working days per week, what is the probability that in a
given day he will sell one policy?

If electricity power failures occur according to a Poisson distribution with an average of 3 failures
every twenty weeks, calculate the probability that there will not be more than one failure during a
particular week.

Vehicles pass through a junction on a busy road at an average rate of 300 per hour.

a. Find the probability that none passes in a given minute.


b. What is the expected number passing in two minutes?
c. Find the probability that this expected number actually pass through in a given two-
minute period.

A company makes electric motors. The probability an electric motor is defective is 0.01 What is the
probability that a sample of 300 electric motors will contain exactly 5 defective motors?

Twenty sheets of aluminum alloy were examined for surface flaws. The frequency of the number of
sheets with a given number of flaws per sheet was as follows,

What is the probability of finding a sheet chosen at random which contains 3 or more surface flaws?

The number of cars passing a point on a country lane has a mean 1.8 per minute. Using the Poisson
distribution, find the probability that in any one minute there are

(i) no cars, (ii) 1 car, (iii) 2 cars, (iv) 3 cars, (v) more than 3 cars.

2 A fire station experiences an average call-out rate of 2.2 every period of three hours. Using the
Poisson distribution, find the probability that in any period of 3 hours there will be

(i) no callouts, (ii) 1 callout, (iii) 2 callouts, (iv) 3 callouts, (v) 4 callouts, (v) more than 4
callouts.
3 The number of radioactive particles emitted in a minute from a meteorite is recorded on a Geiger
counter. The mean number is found to be 3.5 per minute. Using the Poisson distribution, find the
probability that in any one minute there are

(i) no particles,

(ii) 2 particles,

(iii) at least 5 particles.

4 Bacteria are distributed independently of each other in a solution and it is known that the number
of bacteria per millilitre follows a Poisson distribution with mean 2.9. Find the probability that a
sample of 1 ml of solution contains

(i) 0, (ii) 1, (iii) 2, (iv) 3, (v) more than 3 bacteria.

5 The demand for cars from a car hire firm may be modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean 4
per day. (i) Find the probability that in a randomly chosen day the demand is for

( A) 0, (B) 1, (C) 2, (D) 3 cars.

(ii) The firm has 5 cars available for hire. Find the probability that demand exceeds the number of
cars available.

A book of 500 pages has 500 misprints. Using the Poisson distribution, estimate to three decimal
places the probabilities that a given page contains

(i) exactly 3 misprints,

(ii) more than 3 misprints.

7 .190 raisins are put into a mixture which is well stirred and made into 100 small buns. Which is the
most likely number of raisins found in a bun?

8 Small hard particles are found in the molten glass from which glass bottles are made. On average
20 particles are found in 100 kg of molten glass. If a bottle made of this glass contains one or more
such particles it has to be discarded. Bottles of mass 1 kg are made using this glass.

(i) Criticise the following argument: Since the material for 100 bottles contains 20 particles,
approximately 20% will have to be discarded.

(ii) Making suitable assumptions, which should be stated, develop a correct argument using a
Poisson model and find the percentage of faulty 1 kg bottles to 3 significant figures.

9 A hire company has two lawnmowers which it hires out by the day. The number of demands per
day may be modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean 1.5. In a period of 100 working days, how
many times do you expect

(i) neither lawnmower to be used,

(ii) some requests for a lawnmower to have to be refused?

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