The de Moivre-Laplace Theorem in Probability Theory
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The de Moivre-Laplace theorem (first published in 1738) is one of the earliest attempts to approximate probabilities by a normal distribution. This theorem provides a remarkably precise approximation of the distribution function (i.e., the cumulative probabilities) of a binomial distribution with parameters and . Those parameters correspond, for example, to the number of heads obtained in a sequence of tosses of a coin, where is the probability of a head in a single toss. Given the scarcity of calculation resources available in the century, this theorem proved at the time to be a very valuable tool.
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Contributed by: Tomas Garza (January 2008)
Open content licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
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