The Poisson Distribution is a discrete probability distribution that expresses the probability of a given number of events occurring in a fixed interval of time or space, provided that these events happen with a known constant mean rate and independently of the time since the last event. It is particularly useful in scenarios where events are rare or occur infrequently, such as the number of phone calls received by a call center in an hour or the number of emails received in a day. The probability mass function of the Poisson distribution is given by:
where:
The key characteristics of the Poisson distribution include its mean and variance, both of which are equal to . This makes it a valuable tool for modeling count-based data in various fields, including telecommunications, traffic flow, and natural phenomena.
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