Suppose that we have a set of observed frequencies classified in groups, the number in a typical group being nr, and that we wish to estimate the expectations in the groups according to some law with adjustable parameters. If these expectations are mr we take

Σ denoting summation over the groups, and according to the law in question the probability that one observation should come in the rth group is mr/N. The joint probability, for given mr, that there should be n1 observations in the first group, n2 in the second and so on, is therefore