An introduction to the Poisson distribution

Uploaded May 2018 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago

This video provides an introduction to the Poisson distribution, providing a definition, discussing example situations which might be modelled adequately using this distribution, deriving its mean, providing simulations in Matlab which demonstrate its shape, discussing how it can be used to approximate the binomial distribution under certain conditions, and finally describing its conjugate prior - the gamma density.

This video is part of a lecture course which closely follows the material covered in the book, "A Student's Guide to Bayesian Statistics", published by Sage, which is available to order on Amazon here: amazon.co.uk/Students-Guide-Bayesian-Statistics/dp/1473916364

For more information on all things Bayesian, have a look at: ben-lambert.com/bayesian/. The playlist for the lecture course is here: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLwJRxp3blEvZ8AKMXOy0fc0cqT61GsKCG&disable_polymer=true

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