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Re: Geiger, not binomial ?



As I recall dimly from a probability and statistics course taken a few
decades ago, both the Poisson and Gaussian distributions are limiting cases
of the binomial distribution.

Mark Shapiro
http://www.IrascibleProfessor.com


-----Original Message-----
From: Hugh Haskell [mailto:hhaskell@MINDSPRING.COM]
Sent: Thursday, March 23, 2000 11:59 AM
To: PHYS-L@lists.nau.edu
Subject: Re: Geiger, not binomial ?


I have a problem with the distribution of counts from a
Geiger counter.It must be a binomial distribution but I
can not fit it with a binomial distribution.

I thought that a radioactive source was an example of a Poisson
distribution. Looks kind of Gaussian after a time, but really isn't.

Hugh
--

Hugh Haskell
<mailto://hhaskell@mindspring.com>

Let's face it. People use a Mac because they want to, Windows because they
have to..
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