PH689-01 Fall 2006 Statistical methods for physics and astrophysics SOLUTIONS to Assignment #3 1.

. Show that the variance of a binomial distribution equals N p q . X is a binomial random variable: E (X 2 ) = N n=0 = E (X )2 + pqN
N n d 2 N ) n=0 n2 pn (1 p)N n = (p dp N n d 2 pn (1 p)N n = (p dp ) (p + q )N =

d 2 d where E(X)=Np, and (p dp ) means that the operator (p dp ) is applied twice;

V ar (X ) = E (X 2 ) E (X )2 = N pq . 2. It is known that 7.3% of students of a given course fail, and 92.7% pass. This is a binary process, described by a binomial distribution. p = 0.927=P(student passes); N=32. (a) What is the number of expected failures in a class of 32 students? = N p = 29.66 2.3 students fail on average in a calss of 32 students. One may then approximate this with 2, since only integer numbers are meaningful. It is important to notice that the mean of the binomial can be a real number, but the random variable itself is dened in n=0,1,. . . ,N. (b) What is the probability that 5 or more of the 32 students will fail the course? {5 or more f ail} = {32, 31, 30 29 or 28 pass}: P = 1 (P32 (32) + P32 (31) + P30 (30) + P32 (29) + P 32(28)) =1-(0.08-0.223-0.271-0.2140.122)=0.082.