[EGEEH (1) Poisson DisTRIBUTION* Itis a distribution related to the probabilities of events which are extremely rare, but which have a large number of independent opportunities for occurrence. The number of printing mistakes per page, number of accidents on a highway, number of dishonoured cheques at a bank, number of persons born blind per year in a large city and the number of deaths by horse kick in an army corps are some of the phenomena, in which this law is followed. This distribution can be derived as a limiting case of the binomial distribution by making n very large and very small, keeping np fixed (= m, say). ‘The probability of r successes in a binomial-distribution is Pir) = 00, pr grr MOTD =) n= r+ D ae nplnp p)(np 2p) = BPnp = pnp a pyr Asn — =, p 0 (np =m), we have Por)= Ty ¢ rlase (1-m/ny ! so that the probabilities of 0, 1, 2..., successes in a Poisson distribution are given. by me™ em, me-™, , , 2! The sum of these probabilities is unity as it should be. * It was discovered in 1837 by a French mathematician Simon Denius Poisson (1781 - 1840),(2) Constants of the Poisson distribution. These constants can easily be derived from the corresponding constants of the binomial distribution simply by making n > ~, p — 0, (q > 1) and noting that np=m Mean = Lt (np) ny = Lt (npq) = m Lt (q) =m Standard deviation = Vm (V.T.U., 2014) Allso 1, =m, py =m + 3m? 2 Skewness (= \[B, ) = Um, Kurtosis (=) = 3 + Um. Since pi is positive, Poisson distribution is positively skewed and since fi, > 3, it is Leptokurtic. (8) Applications of Poisson distribution. This distribution is applied to problems concerning : (i) Arrival pattern of “defective vehicles in a workshop’, ‘patients in a hospital’ or ‘telephone calls’ (ii) Demand pattern for certain spare parts. (iii) Number of fragments from a shell hitting a target. (iv) Spatial distribution of bomb hits. Example 26.42. If the probability of a bad reaction from a certain injection is 0.001, determine the chance that out of 2,000 individuals more than two will get a bad reaction. (V.T.U., 2008 ; Kottayam, 2005) ‘Solution. It follows a Poisson distribution as the probability of occurrence is very small. ‘Mean m = np = 2000(0.001) = Probability that more than 2 will get a bad reaction 1 - [prob. that no one gets a bad reaction + prob. that one gets a bad reaction + prob. that two get bad reaction] me™ mie™ pene ries te i 2 ee ¢Example 26.43. In a certain factory turning out razor blades, there is a small chance of 0.002 for any blade to be defective. The blades are supplied in packets of 10, use Poisson distribution to caleulate the approxi- ‘mate number of packets containing no defective, one defective and two defective blades respectively in a 2016 ; Kurukshetra, 2009 S; Madras, 2006) consignment of 10,000 packets. wr. Solution. We know that m = np = 10 x 0.002 = 0.02 e702 = 10.02 + sis .9802 approximately .9802 Probability of no defective blade is e~” = e~ 90? = no. of packets containing no defective blade is 10,000 x 0.9802 = 9802 Similarly the number of packets containing one defective blade = 10,000 x me-™ = 10,000 x (0.02) x 0.9802 = 196 Finally the number of packets containing two defective blades rei (0.02)? me = 10,000 x J 7— = 10,000 x 57" x 0.9802 = 2 approximately. Example 26.44. Fit a Poisson distribution to the set of observations: ¥4) 0) 1 2 3 4 { Li, Bp oh Bee eed ix | (U.T.U,, 2010 ; Bhopal, 2007 S) 60+36+6+4 Solution, Mean = 1 = ~~ = 0.5. oo Yi 200‘mean of Poisson distribution ie., m = 0.5. Hence the theoretical frequency for r successes is Ne" (my _ 2000" (.5)° 7! rt the theoretical frequencies are er 1 2 3 7 ater 6 a where r= 0,1, 2, 3,4 e*=0.61)