POISSON PROBABILITY DISTRIBUTION

1- My computer crashes on average once every 4 months;

a) What is the probability that it will not crash in a period of 4 months?

b) What is the probability that it will crash once in a period of 4 months?

c) What is the probability that it will crash twice in a period of 4 months?

d) What is the probability that it will crash three times in a period of 4 months?

2- A customer help center receives on average 3.5 calls every hour.

a) What is the probability that it will receive at most 4 calls every hour?

b) What is the probability that it will receive at least 5 calls every hour?

3- At a small walk-in clinic, an average of five patients arrive at the clinic per hour during

opening hours. What is the probability that exactly three patients will arrive in the next hour?

4- If you receive an average of two emails per week from your statistics professor, what is

the probability that you will receive exactly one email from your statistics professor on Monday?

5- Over the last 300 years, there were 87 floods in Statsville. Assuming that the number of

floods per year follows a Poisson distribution, what is the probability that there will be no floods

in Statsville next year?

6- In the last 100 years, there have been 93 earthquakes measuring 6.0 or more on the

Richter scale. What is the probability of having 3 earthquakes in the same year that all measure

6.0 or more?

7- A person receives on average 3 e-mails per hour.

a) What is the probability that he will receive 5 e-mails over a period two hours?

b) What is the probability that he will receive more than 2 e-mails over a period two hours?

8- Patients arrive at a hospital accident and emergency department at random at a rate of 6

per hour. Find the probability that, during any 90 minute period, the number of patients arriving

at the hospital accident and emergency department is

a) exactly 7

b) at least 3

9- Buttercups in meadow are distributed independently of one another and at a constant

average incidence of 3 buttercups per square metre.

a) Find the probability that in 1 square metre there are more than 5 buttercups.

b) Find the probability that in 4 square metre there are either 13 or 14 buttercups.

10- It is given that 𝑌~𝑃𝑜(𝜇), where 𝜋 ≠ 0, and 𝑃(𝑌 = 4) = 𝑃(𝑌 = 5). Write down an

equation for 𝜇 and the corresponding value of 𝑃(𝑌 = 5).