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"Glenn A. Carlson" wrote:
> There is every reason to expect your data to fit a binomial
> distribution since it is the correct distribution.
However, as Mr.
> Cleyet correctly points out, the Poisson distribution is more useful
> here because of the huge number of nuclei in your sample (on the
> order of 10^23) and the virtually zero probability that any one
> nucleus will decay during the counting interval. ....
Suppose we know nothing about radioactive decay at all. The
counter counts something. Perhaps these are cars crossing a
line on a busy highway in consecutive seconds. Who cares
how many cars are there in the entire country. I can ignore
all cars beyond a certain limit (the limit depends on how long
I am counting) and the distribution is exactly the same.
The experimental distribution gives me the mean number of
counts; it is = 2.20 per interval.
It also gives me the relative
frequency of 0.24 for recording only one count per interval.
For my practical purpose the relative frequency is the
probabiliity p which appear in the binomial distribution.