BINOMIAL DISTRIBUTION

by- Debolina Banerjee

definition
Binomial distribution (Bernoullis distribution) describes the distribution of discrete events that can be classified in a dichotomous (binomial) way of occurrence of the event and non-occurrence of the event in a specific number of trials or samples (n). A binomial experiment (also known as a Bernoulli trial) is a statistical experiment that has the following properties: The experiment consists of n repeated trials. Each trial can result in just two possible outcomes. We call one of these outcomes a success and the other, a failure. The probability of success, denoted by P, is the same on every trial. The trials are independent; that is, the outcome on one trial does not affect the outcome on other trials.

Assumptions
events should be discrete events. Probability of the occurrence and nonoccurrence of the event in each trial should be the same ; i.e. the values of p and q should be constant.

EXAMPLES
Example-1: The event white-eye occurs in a Drosophila or fails to occur. Fails to occur here means that the eye- colour may be anything ( red, brown etc.) but not white. Number of white- eyed flies can be counted in a sample of 10 flies. Example-2: when a coin is tossed (trial) the result is head or nothead. not-head means tail. Number of times the head occurs in 5 tosses (trials) can be counted.

APPLICATIONS
The binomial distribution is used to analyse the error in experimental results that estimate the proportion of individuals in a population that satisfy a condition of interest. Example-1: Suppose the population is women at least 35 years of age who are pregnant with a fetus affected by Down syndrome, and the condition of interest is testing positive on a non-invasive screening test for Down syndrome. The experiment is to take a random sample of 54 such women and see how many test positive.