There is another extremely important way in which they are like the normal distribution: both are maximum entropy distributions, i.e. each is the "most generic"

There is another extremely important way in which they are like the normal distribution: both are maximum entropy distributions, i.e. each is the "most generic" within their respective families of distributions. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution#Maximum_entropy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poisson_distribution#Maximum_e... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution#Maximum_entropy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution#Maximum_en...