Hypergeometric Distribution

The Hypergeometric distribution models the process of sampling without replacement.  Typical applications are lotteries, QA/QC inspection schemes based on small samples and the estimation of the size of closed populations with the capture-recapture method.

Profile

Parameters

Parameter	Description	Characteristics
Npopulation	Size of population	An integer > 0
Spopulation	Number of successes in population	An integer > 0
Nsample	Sample size	An integer > 0
Ssample	Number of successes within sample	An integer > 0

Functions

The brackets denote combinations, this is best illustrated with an example based on the combin function which can be found in Microsoft's Excel Spreadsheet or Google Spreadsheet Document.

Npopulation	10
Spopulation	5
Nsample	4
Ssample	1

If you are MS Excel or Google Docs, the simplest solution is to use the hypgeomdist function:

Properties

Parameter Estimation

Page updated: 17-Mar-2008

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