1995 Paper 1 Q13

Year: 1995
Paper: 1
Question Number: 13

Course: UFM Statistics
Section: Poisson Distribution

Difficulty: 1500.0 Banger: 1484.0

Problem

A scientist is checking a sequence of microscope slides for cancerous cells, marking each cancerous cell that she detects with a red dye. The number of cancerous cells on a slide is random and has a Poisson distribution with mean \(\mu.\) The probability that the scientist spots any one cancerous cell is \(p\), and is independent of the probability that she spots any other one.
  1. Show that the number of cancerous cells which she marks on a single slide has a Poisson distribution of mean \(p\mu.\)
  2. Show that the probability \(Q\) that the second cancerous cell which she marks is on the \(k\)th slide is given by \[ Q=\mathrm{e}^{-\mu p(k-1)}\left\{ (1+k\mu p)(1-\mathrm{e}^{-\mu p})-\mu p\right\} . \]

No solution available for this problem.

Rating Information

Difficulty Rating: 1500.0

Difficulty Comparisons: 0

Banger Rating: 1484.0

Banger Comparisons: 1

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Problem source
A scientist is checking a sequence of microscope slides for cancerous
cells, marking each cancerous cell that she detects with a red dye.
The number of cancerous cells on a slide is random and has a Poisson
distribution with mean $\mu.$ The probability that the scientist
spots any one cancerous cell is $p$, and is independent of the probability
that she spots any other one. 
\begin{questionparts}
\item Show that the number of cancerous cells which she marks on a single
slide has a Poisson distribution of mean $p\mu.$ 
\item Show that the probability $Q$ that the second cancerous cell which
she marks is on the $k$th slide is given by 
\[
Q=\mathrm{e}^{-\mu p(k-1)}\left\{ (1+k\mu p)(1-\mathrm{e}^{-\mu p})-\mu p\right\} .
\]
\end{questionparts}