numpy.random.RandomState.geometric

RandomState.geometric(p, size=None)

Draw samples from the geometric distribution.

Bernoulli trials are experiments with one of two outcomes: success or failure (an example of such an experiment is flipping a coin). The geometric distribution models the number of trials that must be run in order to achieve success. It is therefore supported on the positive integers, k = 1, 2, ....

The probability mass function of the geometric distribution is

f(k) = (1 - p)^{k - 1} p

where p is the probability of success of an individual trial.

Parameters:

p : float or array_like of floats

The probability of success of an individual trial.

size : int or tuple of ints, optional

Output shape. If the given shape is, e.g., (m, n, k), then m * n * k samples are drawn. If size is None (default), a single value is returned if p is a scalar. Otherwise, np.array(p).size samples are drawn.

Returns:

out : ndarray or scalar

Drawn samples from the parameterized geometric distribution.

Examples

Draw ten thousand values from the geometric distribution, with the probability of an individual success equal to 0.35:

>>> z = np.random.geometric(p=0.35, size=10000)

How many trials succeeded after a single run?

>>> (z == 1).sum() / 10000.
0.34889999999999999 #random