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Module 3 · Distributions · Topic 5

Poisson Distribution

Poisson Distribution. The Poisson distribution models the number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space, when events happen independently at a constant average rate λ.

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In the full lesson

  • Poisson PMF (formula)
  • Properties (text)
  • Worked Example (example)
  • Poisson Approximation (tip)

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Key formulas

From the Distributions formula sheet

  • Binomial PMF: P(X = k) = C(n,k)p^k(1-p)^(n-k) - Exact probability of k successes in n independent Bernoulli trials.
  • Z-Score: z = (x - mu) / sigma - Standardizes a value by measuring standard deviations from the mean.

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