Binomial Distribution

#Math #Physics

$X\sim\text{Binomial}(n,p)$

A binomial random variable represents the number of successes out of $n$ independent trials that each have a probability $p$ of success

  • $p_X(x)={n\choose x}p^x(1-p)^{n-x},~x\in{0,1,\ldots,n}$

  • $F_X(x) =$

  • $M_X(t)=(1-p+pe^t)^n$
    This occurs because:

    1. $M_X(t)=\displaystyle\sum_{x=0}^ne^{tx}p_X(x)$
    2. $M_X(t)=\displaystyle\sum_{x=0}^ne^{tx}p^x(1-p)^{n-x}$
    3. $M_X(t)=\displaystyle\sum_{x=0}^n(e^tp)^x(1-p)^{n-x}$
    4. By Binomial theorem: $M_X(t)=(1-p+pe^t)^n$
  • $\mathbb{E}[X]=np$

  • $\text{var}(X) = np(1 - p)$

  • $\displaystyle {\left\langle{x^{2}}\right\rangle}=\sigma ^{2}+\mu ^{2}$

  • A binomial distribution describes the number of successes when running $n$ independent trials where the probability of a success for each trial is $p$

Applications