Poisson distribution
|
|
last updated: 2003-08-01 |

 The Poisson distribution
(Siméon Denis Poisson,
1781-1840) can be obtained from the binomial distribution:
let the number of events N go to infinity, where the most probable number of successes
remains constant 1).
The function is used to be normalized with a factor e-a.
It is not symmetric, as the Gaussian
distribution.
We can use the Poisson distribution in the case of a discrete probability process, with
a constant frequency. Examples can be found in nuclear physics while counting elementary
particles.
notes
1) product of n and p, denoted as: a.
|