10/18/2010

Discuss Exam #1

Continuous Probability Distributions (continued)

• Exponential - p.d.f, c.d.f, m.g.f, mean, variance, memoryless property
• Note: An exponential distribution is often used in a practical problem to represent the distribution of the time that elapses before the occurence of some event. If the events being considered occur in accordance with a Poisson process, then both the waiting time until the event occurs and the time between any two successive events will have exponential distributions.
• Example - Phone calls at an exchange arrive at the rate of 8 per minute, according to a Poisson process. Find the probability that the time, T, from any particular time to the next call exceeds 10 seconds.

Please read section 6.1 for class on Wednesday.