Poisson approximated by Normal for large numbers?

Just a quick question:

Am I correct in thinking that X~Poi(36) may be approximated using X~N(36,36)? What would be a sufficiently large number to do this?

Cheers,

Ivar

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Originally Posted by Ivar_sb

Just a quick question:

Am I correct in thinking that X~Poi(36) may be approximated using X~N(36,36)? What would be a sufficiently large number to do this?

Cheers,

Ivar

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It depends on what you are trying to do. For rough and ready calculations 10 will often do, 20 is better. Google for "error normal approximation poisson".

CB