Collection: Gaussian Distribution

The normal curve is perhaps the most important probability graph in all of statistics.

The “e” in the formula is the irrational number we use as the base for natural logarithms. μ and σ are the mean and standard deviation of the curve.

The person who first derived the formula, Abraham DeMoivre (1667- 1754), was solving a gambling problem whose solution depended on finding the sum of the terms of a binomial distribution.

Later work, especially by Gauss about 1800, used the normal distribution to describe the pattern of random measurement error in observational data. Neither man used the name “normal curve.” That expression did not appear until the 1870s.