HYPGEOMDIST

Description: Returns the hypergeometric distribution. HYPGEOMDIST returns the probability of a given number of sample successes, given the sample size, population successes and population size.

Syntax: HYPGEOMDIST(Sample_S,Number_Sample,Population_S,Number_Population)

Sample_S is the number of successes in the sample.
Number_Sample is the size of the sample.
Population_S is the number of successes in the population.
Number_Population is the population size.

Remarks:

All arguments are truncated to integers.
Arguments must be numeric.
Sample_S must be => 0 and <= the lesser of Number_Sample or Population_S.
Sample_S must be => the larger of 0 or (Number_Sample - Number_Population + Population_S).
Number_Sample must be => 0 and <= Number_Population.
Population_S must be => 0 and <= Number_Population.
Number_Population must be => 0.
The equation for the hypergeometric distribution is:

where:

x = Sample_S

n = Number_Sample

M = Population_S

N = Number_Population

HYPGEOMDIST is used in sampling without replacement from a finite population.

Example:

A sampler of chocolates contains 20 pieces. Eight pieces are caramels, and the remaining 12 are nuts. If a person selects 4 pieces at random, the following function returns the probability that exactly 1 piece is a caramel.

HYPGEOMDIST(1,4,8,20) = 0.363261