Poisson Approximation to the Binomial Distribution

A visual demonstration of the accuracy of approximating the binomial distribution with the Poisson distribution.

View Binomial Distribution

View Poisson Distribution

View probabilities

n = 5 (slider from 5 to 25, step 1)
p = 0.14 (slider from 0 to 1, step 0.02)
xvals = Sequence(i, i, 0, n)
yvalsbin = Sequence(BinomialDist[n, p, xvals(i), false], i, 1, n + 1)
b = BarChart(xvals, yvalsbin, 0.5)
lambda: (n * p)
yvalspoisson = Sequence(Poisson[lambda, xvals(i), false], i, 1, n + 1)
a = BarChart(xvals, yvalspoisson, 0)
c = true
d = false
text1: "x values = " + xvals + ""
text2: "Binomial probabilities = " + yvalsbin + ""
text3: "Poisson probabilities = " + yvalspoisson + ""
e = false