Question

in a career setting, describe a situation where probability or discrete probability distributions are used. How does a better understanding of these topics aid in the comprehension of your selected use. If possible, supplement your post with a graph or example from the web of this use.

Answer 1

Discrete Probability Distributions:

If a random variable is a discrete variable, its probability distribution is called a discrete probability distribution.

An example will make this clear. Suppose you flip a coin two times. This simple statistical experiment can have four possible outcomes:

Sample space = { HH, HT, TH, TT }

Now, let the random variable X represent the number of Heads that result from this experiment. The random variable X can only take on the values 0, 1, or 2, so it is a discrete random variable.

The probability distribution for this statistical experiment appears below.

Number of heads X	Probability P(X)
0	0.25
1	0.50
2	0.25
	∑ P(X) = 1

Histogram:
X on Horizontal axis
P(X) on Vertical axis