Scribd
Upload
11 views

Probability-1 1

Probability

Uploaded by

rasoulzadam
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
11 views

Probability-1 1

Probability

Uploaded by

rasoulzadam
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
You are on page 1/ 4

Bernoulli Trials

Suppose an experiment with two possible


outcomes, such as tossing a coin.
Each performance of such an experiment is called a
Bernoulli trial.
We will call the two possible outcomes a success or
a failure, respectively.
If p is the probability of a success and q is the
probability of a failure, it is obvious that
p + q = 1.
24
Bernoulli Trials

Often we are interested in the probability of exactly


k successes when an experiment consists of n
independent Bernoulli trials.

Example:
A coin is biased so that the probability of head is 2/3.
What is the probability of exactly four heads to come
up when the coin is tossed seven times?

25
Bernoulli Trials

Solution:
There are 27 = 128 possible outcomes.
The number of possibilities for four heads among the
seven trials is C(7, 4).
The seven trials are independent, so the probability
of each of these outcomes is
(2/3)4(1/3)3.
Consequently, the probability of exactly four heads to
appear is
C(7, 4)(2/3)4(1/3)3 = 560/2187 = 25.61% 26
Bernoulli Trials

Theorem: The probability of k successes in n


independent Bernoulli trials, with probability of success
p and probability of failure q = 1 – p, is
C(n, k)pkqn-k .
See the textbook for the proof.
We denote by b(k; n, p) the probability of k successes
in n independent Bernoulli trials with probability of
success p and probability of failure q = 1 – p.
Considered as function of k, we call b the binomial
distribution.
27

You might also like