POISSON.DIST Function

The POISSON.DIST function is one of the statistical functions. It is used to return the Poisson distribution; a common application of the Poisson distribution is predicting the number of events over a specific time, such as the number of cars arriving at a toll plaza in 1 minute.

The POISSON.DIST function syntax is:

POISSON.DIST(x, mean, cumulative)

where

x is the number of events, a numeric value greater than 0.

mean is the expected numeric value greater than 0.

cumulative is the form of the function, a logical value: TRUE or FALSE. If cumulative is TRUE, the function will return the cumulative Poisson probability; if FALSE, it will return the Poisson probability mass function.

The values can be entered manually or included into the cell you make reference to.

To apply the POISSON.DIST function,

1. select the cell where you wish to display the result,
2. click the Insert function
   icon situated at the top toolbar,
   or right-click within a selected cell and select the Insert Function option from the menu,
   or click the
   icon situated at the formula bar,
3. select the Statistical function group from the list,
4. click the POISSON.DIST function,
5. enter the required arguments separating them by commas,
6. press the Enter button.

The result will be displayed in the selected cell.