Consider , and , so . We know
We want to estimate the Binomial distribution, because factorials are troublesome to work with. The key tool is to use Stirling Approximation
1 Entropy Approximation
We can use entropy to approximate Binomial distribution. To be more specific, KL divergence.
Theorem (Entropy Approximation)
Let and define . Then for , where
2 Normal Approximation
Taylor expansion of (see as a function about ) about gives for some between .
To obtain a normal approximation, we need the remainder quantity to be small. Notice that
If is away from both and , and is small, then this upper bound will be small.
For to be small, we need to decay faster than as .
Since , the normal approximation for is accurate for large .
Good news is that when , by SLLN, .
So normal approximation is that
This is accurate if .
However, in general, normal approximation is less accurate than the entropy approximation.
When , .
Next, let . Then .
So, which is a Riemann sum converging to .
2.1 Application of CLT for
Let be the proportion of the population supporting Trump. be the number of people polled u.a.r from the population. be the number in the sample who support Trump. be the estimator of .
How large should be, s.t. for given and ?
This is the #ConvidenceLevel . For each trial, moves, and this moving interval should cover at least of the time.