Maximum likelihood, also called the maximum likelihood method, is the procedure of finding the value of one or more parameters for a given statistic which makes the known likelihood distribution a maximum. The maximum likelihood estimate for a parameter μ is denoted μ^^. For a Bernoulli distribution, d/(d θ)[(N N p) θ^(N p) (1 - θ)^(N q)] = N p(1 - θ) - θ N q = 0, so maximum likelihood occurs for θ = p.