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Poisson distribution
discrete probability distribution / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In probability and statistics, Poisson distribution is a probability distribution. It is named after Siméon Denis Poisson. It measures the probability that a certain number of events occur within a certain period of time. The events need to be unrelated to each other. They also need to occur with a known average rate, represented by the symbol (lambda).[1]
![Thumb image](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c1/Poisson_distribution_PMF.png/640px-Poisson_distribution_PMF.png)
More specifically, if a random variable follows Poisson distribution with rate
, then the probability of the different values of
can be described as follows:[2][3]
for
Examples of Poisson distribution include:
- The numbers of cars that pass on a certain road in a certain time
- The number of telephone calls a call center receives per minute
- The number of light bulbs that burn out (fail) in a certain amount of time
- The number of mutations in a given stretch of DNA after a certain amount of radiation
- The number of errors that occur in a system
- The number of Property & Casualty insurance claims experienced in a given period of time