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The Poisson distribution

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Introduction to Biometry

Abstract

The Poisson distribution is a discontinuous distribution which was described by the French mathematician Siméon Denis Poisson (1781-2013;1840) in a book published in 1837. The Poisson distribution is a particular case of the binomial distribution (chapter 17) where the probability p becomes smaller and smaller (p → 0) while the exponent k becomes larger and larger (k ∞) in such a way that their product, the mean, μ= kp, keeps a finite value (0 < μ = kp < ∞). The Poisson distribution might thus be defined by the following equation

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© 1999 Springer Science+Business Media New York

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Jolicoeur, P. (1999). The Poisson distribution. In: Introduction to Biometry. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4777-8_19

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4777-8_19

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-7163-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-4777-8

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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