BINOMIAL

DISTRIBUTION
TWO
OUTCOMES

FLIPPING A COIN A BABY IS BORN BASKETBALL GAME

• Heads • Female • Win
• Tails • Male • Lose
Other situations can be reduced to
two outcomes.

Taking a test MedicaL treatment Blood pressure

• Correct • Effective • Normal
• Incorrect • Ineffective • Abnormal
BINOMIAL
experiment
BINOMIAL EXPERIMENT
REQUIREMENTS
1 2
There must be a
fixed number of The outcomes of
trials. each trial must be
independent of one
another.
3
Each trial can have
only two outcomes or 4
outcomes that can be The probability of a
reduced to two success must
outcomes. These remain the same for
outcomes can be each trial.
considered as either
success or failure.
EXAMPLE 1
Drawing five cards
Selecting 20 from a deck Recording the
university without number of
students and replacement and children in 50
recording their recording whether randomly
year level they are red or selected families
black cards
B D

a C E
Selecting five
Selecting 20
students from a
students from a
large school and
university and
asking them if
recording their
they are on the
gender
dean’s list
EXERCISES
Which of the following are binomial experiments or can be
reduced to binomial experiments?
a) Surveying 100 people to determine if they like Sudsy Yes
Soap
b) Tossing a coin 100 times to see how many heads occur Yes
c) Drawing a card with replacement from a deck and Yes
getting a heart
d) Asking 1000 people which brand of cigarettes they No
smoke
e) Testing four different brands of aspirin to see which No
brands are effective
EXERCISES
Which of the following are binomial experiments or can be
reduced to binomial experiments?
f) Testing one brand of aspirin by using 10 people to Yes
determine whether it is effective
g) Asking 100 people if they smoke Yes
h) Checking 1000 applicants to see whether they were Yes
admitted to White Oak College
i) Surveying 300 prisoners to see how many different No
crimes they were convicted of
j) Surveying 300 prisoners to see whether this is their first Yes
offense
“ The outcomes of a binomial experiment
and the corresponding probabilities of
these outcomes are called a
binomial distribution.
NOTATION FOR THE BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION
P(S) The symbol for the probability of success
P(F) The symbol for the probability of failure
p The numerical probability of a success
q The numerical probability of a failure

P(S) = p and P(F) = 1 – p = q

n The number of trials

X The number of successes in n trials

Note that 0 ≤ 𝑋 ≤ 𝑛 and X = 0, 1, 2, 3, … , n

Binomial probability formula

In a binomial experiment, the probability of exactly X

successes in n trials is

𝒏! 𝑿 𝒏.𝑿
𝑷 𝑿 = +𝒑 +𝒒
𝒏 − 𝑿 ! 𝑿!
 A coin is tossed 3 times. Find the
probability of getting exactly two
heads.
TOSSING
HHH, HHT, HTH, THH, TTH, THT,
COINS HTT, TTT

3/8 or 0.375
 q There must be a fixed number of
trials.
q Each trial can have only two
outcomes or outcomes that can be
TOSSING reduced to two outcomes. These
outcomes can be considered as
COINS either success or failure.
q The outcomes of each trial must be
independent of one another.
q The probability of a success must
remain the same for each trial.
 In this case, n = 3, X = 2, p = ½ , and
q = ½ . Hence, substituting in the
formula
TOSSING P(X) =
n!
(n − X)!X!
X
⋅ p ⋅q n−X

COINS gives
2 1
3! ⎛1⎞ ⎛1⎞
P(2heads) = ⋅⎜ ⎟ ⋅ ⎜ ⎟ = 0.375
(3− 2)!2! ⎝ 2 ⎠ ⎝2⎠
Survey on Doctor Visits
A survey found that one out of five Americans says
he or she has visited a doctor in any given month. If
10 people are selected at random, find the
probability that exactly 3 will have visited a doctor
last month.

0.201
Survey on EMPLOYMENt
A survey from Teenage Research Unlimited
(Northbrook, Illinois) found that 30% of teenage
consumers receive their spending money from part-
time jobs. If 5 teenagers are selected at random, find
the probability that at least 3 of them will have part-
time jobs.

0.162
 A coin is tossed 3 times. Find the
probability of getting exactly two
TOSSING A COIN heads. 0.375
EXERCISES
Compute the probability of X successes using
Table B.

a) n = 2, p = 0.30, X = 1 0.420
b) n = 4, p = 0.60, X = 3 0.346
c) n = 5, p = 0.10, X = 0 0.590
d) n = 10, p = 0.40, X = 4 0.251
e) n = 20, p = 0.50, X = 10 0.176
f) n = 16, p = 0.20, X = 3 0.246
Survey on Fear of Being Home
Alone at Night
Public Opinion reported that 5% of Americans are afraid of
being alone in a house at night. If a random sample of 20
Americans is selected, find these probabilities by using the
binomial table.
a. There are exactly 5 people in the sample who are afraid of
being alone at night. 0.002
b. There are at most 3 people in the sample who are afraid of
being alone at night. 0.984
c. There are at least 3 people in the sample who are afraid of
being alone at night. 0.076
Driving while intoxicated
A report from the Secretary of Health and Human
Services stated that 70% of single vehicle traffic fatalities
that occur at night on weekends involve an intoxicated
driver. If a sample of 15 single-vehicle traffic fatalities
that occur on a weekend night is selected, find the
probability that between 10 and 15, inclusive, accidents
involved drivers who were intoxicated.

0.723
EXERCISES
Compute the probability of X successes, using the
binomial formula.

a) n = 6, X = 3, p = 0.03 0.0005
b) n = 4, X = 2, p = 0.18 0.131
c) n = 5, X = 3, p = 0.63 0.342
d) n = 9, X = 0, p = 0.42 0.007
 Mean,
Variance, and
standard
deviation for
the binomial
distribution
Mean and standard deviation
for binomial distribution
The mean, variance, and standard deviation of a
variable that has the binomial distribution can be
found by using the following formulas.

Mean: 𝜇 = 𝑛 + 𝑝
Variance: 𝜎 2 = 𝑛 + 𝑝 + 𝑞
Standard Deviation: 𝜎 = 𝑛 + 𝑝 + 𝑞
A coin is tossed 4 times. Find the mean,
variance, and standard deviation of the number of
heads that will be obtained.

With the formulas for the binomial distribution and

n = 4, p = ½, and q = ½, the results are tossing
a coin

In this case, the mean is two heads. The variance

is 1 and the standard deviation is 1.
Rolling a die
An 8-sided die (with the numbers 1 through 8
on the faces) is rolled 560 times. Find the
mean, variance, and standard deviation of
the number of 7s that will be rolled.

mean: 0.723; variance: 61.25;

standard deviation:7.826
Likelihood of twins
The Statistical Bulletin published by Metropolitan
Life Insurance Co. reported that 2% of all American
births result in twins. If a random sample of 8000
births is taken, find the mean, variance, and
standard deviation of the number of births that
would result in twins.
mean: 160; variance: 156.8;
standard deviation: 12.522
EXERCISES
Find the mean, variance, and standard
deviation for each of the values of n and p
when the conditions for the binomial
distribution are met.

a) n = 100, p = 0.75 75; 18.8; 4.3

b) n = 300, p = 0.3 90; 63; 7.9
c) n = 20, p = 0.5 10; 5; 2.2
NORMAL APPROXIMATION
TO THE BINOMIAL
Blood donors
Suppose 20 donors come to a
blood drive. Six percent of
people are “universal donors”.
a) What are the mean and
standard deviation of the
number of universal donors
among them?
b) What is the probability that
there are 2 or 3 universal
donors?
Suppose the PH Red Cross
anticipates the need for at least
1850 units of O-negative blood
this year. It estimates that it will
collect blood from 32,000
donors. How great is the risk
that the PH Red Cross will fall
short of meeting its need?
ThE NORMAL MODEL TO THE RESCUE!
The success/failure condition

A Binomial model is approximately Normal if we

expect at least 10 successes and 10 failures:

np ≥ 10 and nq ≥ 10
SPAM E-MAILS
The communications monitoring company Postini has
reported that 91% of e-mail messages are spam.
Recently, you installed a spam filter. You observe that
over the past week it okayed only 151 of 1422 e-mails
you received, classifying the rest as junk. Should you
worry that the filtering is too aggressive?
QUESTION: What’s the probability that no more than
151 of 1422 e-mails is a real message?
AIRCRAFT ENGINES
Engineers define reliability as the probability that an item
will perform its function under specific conditions for a
specific period of time. A certain model of aircraft engine is
designed so that each engine has probability 0.999 of
performing properly for an hour of flight. Company
engineers test an SRS of 350 engines of this model. Let X =
the number that operate for an hour without failure. Two
engines failed the test. Are you convinced that this model of
engine is less reliable than it’s supposed to be? Compute
P(X ≤ 348) and use the result to justify your answer.
Thank
you