Underlying Assumptions

"The first is that the organisms are distributed randomly throughout the sample. This means that the organism level is equally likely to be the same in each sample."
"The second assumption is that each sample when incubated is certain to exhibit growth whenever the sample contains one or more organisms."

W.G. Cochran (1950) - "There are two principle assumptions."

"The first is that the organisms are distributed randomly throughout the sample. This means that the organism level is equally likely to be the same in each sample."