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Jun 09'24

Exercise

When John Kemeny was chair of the Mathematics Department at Dartmouth College, he received an average of ten letters each day. On a certain weekday he received no mail and wondered if it was a holiday. To decide this he computed the probability that, in ten years, he would have at least 1 day without any mail. He assumed that the number of letters he received on a given day has a Poisson distribution. What probability did he find? Hint: Apply the Poisson distribution twice. First, to find the probability that, in 3000 days, he will have at least 1 day without mail, assuming each year has about 300 days on which mail is delivered.