Help me reconcile my own Poisson distribution calculation to that on a web page.

18 Views Asked by At

On a web page here I see the following question: enter image description here

The web page provides this answer: enter image description here

But my own solution is different:

enter image description here

Who's right? What's the mistake in the wrong solution?

P.S. And by the way, what is the purpose in stating the formula as a fraction but still using a negative exponent? Why not write that factor in the denominator with a positive power?

1

There are 1 best solutions below

0
On

You've computed the probability that exactly 3 taxis arrive, but the problem is asking for the probability that at least 3 taxis to arrive, so this is $$P(X \ge 3) = 1 - P(X=0) - P(X=1) - P(X=2) = 1 - e^{-2} - e^{-2} \cdot 2 - e^{-2} \cdot \frac{2^2}{2!} = 1-5e^{-2}.$$

Writing $e^{-\mu}$ instead of $\frac{1}{e^{\mu}}$ is a matter of personal preference, although I see $e^{-\mu}$ much more often for some reason (maybe because it has less visual clutter). I would not worry about this too much.