Glossary · Phase 2 · Math, when you need it
Normal distribution
The bell-shaped curve: most values sit near the average, and fewer the further you go.
Stack the weights into a bar chart and you get a bell: tall in the middle, sloping down evenly on both sides. This is the normal distribution. People also call it the Gaussian distribution, after the mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, or the bell curve.
Try it now
Draw 500 samples and check the readout. Close to 68% land within one standard deviation, whatever mean and σ you pick.
Learn it properly
The normal distribution · The bell curve, and why it shows up everywhere. About 25 minutes.
Other terms from the same lesson
- central limit theorem: Averages of many random values form a bell curve, even when the values themselves don't.
- z-score: How many standard deviations a value sits above or below the average. A z-score of 2 is unusually high.
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