Univariate Discrete Distributions: An Easy-to-Understand Explanation with Visuals

Do you know this? You want to learn something new, but you don’t know where to start. This is how we felt when we wanted to understand distributions mathematically. Yes, our professor explained all these distributions to us, but only mathematically, with formulas! Our professor didn’t explain it in an easy-to-understand way with visuals.

That’s why we wrote this article about the most important univariate discrete distributions. We want to explain you these distributions mathematically and visually. Our goal is that you understand the relationship between the maths and the distribution plot. In addition, we also present you an example for each distribution.

As a Data Scientist, it is important to understand how distributions work. Distribution assumptions are the backbone for some ML algorithms and are essential to solving statistical questions, for example in the insurance industry.

We’ll discuss the following distributions:

• Bernoulli Distribution

• Binomial Distribution

• Geometric Distribution

• Poisson Distribution

• Uniform Distribution

Let’s dive in!