Poisson approximation justification or comparison

6 It is known that 1 in 5000 people in Atalia have a certain condition. A random sample of 12500 people from Atalia is chosen for a medical trial. The number having the condition is denoted by \(X\).

1. Use an appropriate approximating distribution to find \(\mathrm { P } ( X \leqslant 3 )\).
2. Find the values of \(\mathrm { E } ( X )\) and \(\operatorname { Var } ( X )\), and explain how your answers suggest that the approximating distribution used in (a) is likely to be appropriate.

3 In a certain lottery, on average 1 in every 10000 tickets is a prize-winning ticket. An agent sells 6000 tickets.

1. Use a suitable approximating distribution to find the probability that at least 3 of the tickets sold by the agent are prize-winning tickets.
2. Justify the use of your approximating distribution in this context.

5. An Internet service provider has a large number of users regularly connecting to its computers. On average only 3 users every hour fail to connect to the Internet at their first attempt.

1. Give 2 reasons why a Poisson distribution might be a suitable model for the number of failed connections every hour.
2. Find the probability that in a randomly chosen hour
   1. all Internet users connect at their first attempt,
   2. more than 4 users fail to connect at their first attempt.
3. Write down the distribution of the number of users failing to connect at their first attempt in an 8-hour period.
4. Using a suitable approximation, find the probability that 12 or more users fail to connect at their first attempt in a randomly chosen 8-hour period.

4. A website receives hits at a rate of 300 per hour.

1. State a distribution that is suitable to model the number of hits obtained during a 1 minute interval.
2. State two reasons for your answer to part (a). Find the probability of
3. 10 hits in a given minute,
4. at least 15 hits in 2 minutes. The website will go down if there are more than 70 hits in 10 minutes.
5. Using a suitable approximation, find the probability that the website will go down in a particular 10 minute interval.

4 At a parcel delivery company it is known that the probability that a parcel is delivered to the wrong address is 0.0005 . On a particular day, 15000 parcels are delivered. The number of parcels delivered to the wrong address is denoted by the random variable \(X\).

1. Explain why the binomial distribution and the Poisson distribution could both be suitable models for the distribution of \(X\).
2. Use a Poisson distribution to find each of the following.
   • \(\mathrm { P } ( X = 5 )\)
   • \(\mathrm { P } ( X \geqslant 8 )\)
   You are given that 15000 parcels are delivered each day in a 5-day working week.
3. 1. Determine the probability that at least 40 parcels are delivered to the wrong address during the week.
   2. Determine the probability that at least 8 parcels are delivered to the wrong address on each of the 5 days in the week.

2 On computer monitor screens there are often one or more tiny dots which are permanently dark and do not display any of the image. Such dots are known as 'dead pixels'. Dead pixels occur on screens randomly and independently of each other. A company manufactures three types of monitor, Types A, B and C. For a monitor of Type A, the screen has a total of 2304000 pixels. For this type of monitor, the probability of a randomly chosen pixel being dead is 1 in 500000 . Let \(X\) represent the number of dead pixels on a monitor screen of this type.

1. Explain why you could use either a binomial distribution or a Poisson distribution to model the distribution of \(X\).
2. Use a Poisson distribution to calculate estimates of each of the following probabilities.
   For a monitor of Type B, the probability of a randomly chosen pixel being dead is also 1 in 500 000. The screen of a monitor of Type B has a total of \(n\) pixels. Use a binomial distribution to find the least value of \(n\) for which the probability of finding at least 1 dead pixel is greater than 0.99 . Give your answer in millions correct to 3 significant figures. For a monitor of Type C, the number of dead pixels on the screen is modelled by a Poisson distribution with mean \(\lambda\).
3. Given that the probability of finding at least one dead pixel is 0.8 , find \(\lambda\).

1 A website simulates the outcome of throwing four fair dice. Ten thousand people take part in a challenge using the website in which they have one attempt at getting four sixes in the four throws of the dice. The number of people who succeed in getting four sixes is denoted by the random variable \(X\).

1. Show that, for each person, the probability that the person gets four sixes is equal to \(\frac { 1 } { 1296 }\).
2. Explain why you could use either a binomial distribution or a Poisson distribution to model the distribution of \(X\).
3. Use a Poisson distribution to calculate each of the following probabilities.
   Determine the probability that no more than 2 people succeed in getting four sixes at least once in their 20 attempts.

4 A radioactive source contains 1000000 nuclei of a particular radioisotope. On average 1 in 200000 of these nuclei will decay in a period of 1 second. The random variable \(X\) represents the number of nuclei which decay in a period of 1 second. You should assume that nuclei decay randomly and independently of each other.

1. Explain why you could use either a binomial distribution or a Poisson distribution to model the distribution of \(X\). Use a Poisson distribution to answer parts (b) and (c).
2. Calculate each of the following probabilities.