Binomial distribution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The binomial distribution counts successes in a fixed number of independent Bernoulli trials with common success probability . Equivalently,Here is a nonnegative integer and . The binomial coefficient counts placements of the successes; each particular arrangement has probability . The binomial theorem makes the masses sum to . At all mass is at zero, and at all mass is at ; these endpoint laws can be read directly without interpreting .
The linearity of expectation and addition of variances for independent random variables giveThe fixed trial count, common success probability, and joint independence are substantive model assumptions. Sampling uniformly without replacement from a finite population instead leads to a hypergeometric distribution. Independent trials with different success probabilities generally give a Poisson binomial distribution. Common marginal success probabilities alone are insufficient: if all ten indicators equal the same Bernoulli random variable with , their sum is zero with probability or ten with probability . Its mean is still three, but its variance is . The standard construction is given in Penn State STAT 504, binomial distribution.
For an exact constructed example, let each of ten independent trials choose uniformly from ten labelled tokens, with replacement, and mark three tokens as successes. Then and . Exactly three successes have probabilityThe mean is , the variance is , and the standard deviation is . Zero successes have probability , so at least one success has probability . A single count calculation replaces enumeration of all equally likely token sequences.
