In many of the problems dealt with in this book, the number of trials, n, is very large. A small molecule undergoing diffusion, for example, steps to the right or left millions of times in a microsecond, not 4 times in a few seconds, as the ball in the apparatus of Fig. A.3. There are two asymptotic limits of the binomial distribution. One, the Gaussian, or normal, distribution, is obtained when the probability of a success, p, is finite, i.e., if np -> as n -> . The other, the Poisson distribution, is obtained if p is very small, so small that np remains finite as n -> .
The derivation of the Gaussian distribution involves the use of Stirling's approximation for the factorials of the binomial coefficients:
where e is the base of the natural logarithms. The result is
where µ = <k> = np and
= (<k2> -
<k>2)1/2
= (npq)1/2, as before. P(k; µ,
) dk is the probability
that k
will be found between k and k + dk, where dk is
infinitesimal. The distribution is continuous rather than discrete.
Expectation values are found by taking integrals rather
than sums. The distribution is symmetric about the mean,
µ, and its width is determined by
. The area of the
distribution is 1, so its height is inversely proportional to
.
If we define u = (k - µ) /
, i.e., plot the distribution
with the abscissa in units of
and the origin at
µ, then
P(u) is called the normal curve of error; it is shown in
Fig. A.5. As an exercise, use your tables of definite
integrals and show that
and
Eq. A.30 can be done by inspection: P(u) is an even
function of u, so uP(u) must be an odd function of u. The
distribution P(u) is normalized, its mean value is 0, and its
variance and standard deviation are 1.