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Poisson Distribution

The document discusses the Poisson distribution and how it can be used to model the probability of rare events. It provides examples of how the Poisson distribution can approximate the binomial distribution when the number of trials is large and the probability of success is small. It also gives examples of calculating probabilities using the Poisson distribution.

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connorcollingwood
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14 views6 pages

Poisson Distribution

The document discusses the Poisson distribution and how it can be used to model the probability of rare events. It provides examples of how the Poisson distribution can approximate the binomial distribution when the number of trials is large and the probability of success is small. It also gives examples of calculating probabilities using the Poisson distribution.

Uploaded by

connorcollingwood
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Poisson Distribution

What is Poisson Distribution?


The Poisson distribution is a discrete distribution that measures the probability of a given number
of events happening in a specified time period. Poisson distribution is a tool that helps to predict
the probability of certain events happening when you know how often the event has occurred. It
gives us the probability of a given number of events happening in a fixed interval of time.

Process
The probability of the outcome X = r of a set of Bernoulli trials can always be calculated by
using the formula P(X = r) = nCrq n−r p r given above. Clearly, for very large values of n the
calculation can be rather tedious, this is particularly so when very small values of p are also
present. In the situation when n is large and p is small and the product np is constant we can take
a different approach to the problem of calculating the probability that X = r. In the table below
the values of P(X = r) have been calculated for various combinations of n and p under the
constraint that np = 1. You should try some of the calculations for yourself using the formula
given above for some of the smaller values of n.

Each of the binomial distributions given has a mean given by np = 1. Notice that the probabilities
that X = 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, . . . approach the values 0.368, 0.368, 0.184, . . . as n increases.
If we have to determine the probabilities of success when large values of n and small values of p
are involved it would be very convenient if we could do so without having to construct tables. In
fact we can do such calculations by using the Poisson distribution which, under certain
constraints, may be considered as an approximation to the binomial distribution.
By considering simplifications applied to the binomial distribution subject to the conditions
1. n is large
2. p is small
3. np = λ (λ a constant)
we can derive the formula

This is the Poisson distribution given previously. We now show how this is done. We know that
the binomial distribution is given by

Condition (2) tells us that since p is small, q = 1 − p is approximately equal to 1. Applying this to
the terms of the binomial expansion above we see that the right-hand side becomes

Applying condition (1) allows us to approximate terms such as (n−1),(n−2), . . . to n


(mathematically, we are allowing n → ∞ ) and the right-hand side of our expansion become

Note that the term p n → 0 under these conditions and hence has been omitted. We now have the
series

which, using condition (3) may be written as


You may recognise this as the expansion of eλ . If we are to be able to claim that the terms of this
expansion represent probabilities, we must be sure that the sum of the terms is 1. We divide by eλ
to satisfy this condition. This gives the result

The terms of this expansion are very good approximations to the corresponding binomial
expansion under the conditions
1. n is large
2. p is small
3. np = λ (λ constant)
The Poisson approximation to the binomial distribution is summarized below.
EXAMPLES
1. Mass-produced needles are packed in boxes of 1000. It is believed that 1 needle in 2000
on average is substandard. What is the probability that a box contains 2 or more
defectives? The correct model is the binomial distribution with n = 1000, p = 1 2000 (and
q = 1999/2000 ).
Using the binomial distribution calculate P(X = 0), P(X = 1) and hence P(X ≥ 2):

Now choose a suitable value for λ in order to use a Poisson model to approximate the
probabilities:

Now recalculate the probability that there are 2 or more defectives using the Poisson distribution
with λ = 1/2 :

2. In the manufacture of glassware, bubbles can occur in the glass which reduces the status of the
glassware to that of a ‘second’. If, on average, one in every 1000 items produced has a bubble,
calculate the probability that exactly six items in a batch of three thousand are seconds.
3. A manufacturer produces light-bulbs that are packed into boxes of 100. If quality control
studies indicate that 0.5% of the light-bulbs produced are defective, what percentage of the boxes
will contain:
(a) no defective? (b) 2 or more defectives?

4.

5. Calculate P(X = 0) to P(X = 5) when λ = 2, accurate to 4 d.p.

Notice how the values for P(X = r) in the above answer increase, stay the same and then decrease
relatively rapidly (due to the significant increase in r! with increasing r). Here two of the
probabilities are equal and this will always be the case when λ is an integer. In this last Task we
only went up to P(X = 5) and calculated each entry separately. However, each probability need
not be calculated directly. We can use the following relations (which can be checked from the
formulae for P(X = r)) to get the next probability from the previous one:
END OF TOPIC

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