Normal frequency distribution

From ACT Wiki
Jump to navigationJump to search
The printable version is no longer supported and may have rendering errors. Please update your browser bookmarks and please use the default browser print function instead.

A normal frequency distribution is a theoretical continuous, symmetrical, bell-shaped distribution function. Its mean, mode and median are all the same; and both the tails of the bell curve are infinitely long.

Because of its symmetry, a normal frequency distribution can be described fully by its mean and its standard deviation.

Commonly abbreviated to normal distribution.


Simple normal distributions are frequently used for modelling uncertainty. However, reality is rarely so neat and symmetrical as the normal distribution model.

This can lead to spurious accuracy and a false sense of security from relying on models of that kind.


See also


Other resource

Students: Perfect proportions, The Treasurer, July 2013