Poisson distribution
- noun
- /pwaˈsɔ̃ dɪstrɪˈbjuːʃən/
- Specialized
:
distribución de Poisson
- Formal comparisons of the mortality rates for all deaths, AIDS-related deaths, and liver-related deaths were done with methods based on the Poisson distribution.
- assuming a Poisson distribution
Examples
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When analyzing the frequency of customer arrivals, we assumed that the arrival times adhered to a Poisson distribution.
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The researchers found that the number of earthquakes in a given month followed a Poisson distribution.
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You see, here we have a normal Poisson distribution for the animal population.
Fiction book (1990) -
The count of arrests was assumed to have a Poisson distribution.
Academic text (2010) -
Sometimes it is possible, especially in the case of telephone traffic, to determine the expected number of new calls arriving in a certain period of time by using a Poisson distribution.
Academic text (2000) -
The 95% confidence interval (CI) of the SIR was then calculated on the assumption that the observed number of cancers follows a Poisson distribution.
Academic text (1994) -
Because we defined establishment as presence after 3 years, i.e., a count per specified unit of time, it was expected to be well represented by a Poisson distribution (Faraway 2005).
Academic text (2016) -
We modeled plant richness with a Poisson distribution when a goodness-of-fit test failed to detect overdispersion, and with a negative binomial distribution when overdispersion was present.
Academic text (2013) -
In ecology, the number of rare plant species in a small area can often be modeled using a Poisson distribution.
Synonyms
1
9.9
A way to predict how many times independent events happen in a fixed time when the average rate is steady
Surface Forms
Morphology
A learner who knows 'distribution' can infer this is a kind or family of statistical distributions, but 'Poisson' is an eponym (a proper name) that carries no lexical information about event counts or rarity. Thus the general class is somewhat clear, but the specific probabilistic meaning (likelihood of rare events in an interval) is not derivable from the parts.
Etymology
The term Poisson distribution is named after a French mathematician called Poisson, and his name also means 'fish' in French, so you can imagine rare fish popping up in a river and you count how many appear in a set time. That's why the name now means 'a way to predict how many rare events happen in a fixed time or space'.