1106 Programme 29 Continuous probability distributions [es The binomial and Poisson distributions refer to discrete events, e.g. the number of successes probable in a trial. Where continuous variables are involved, e.g. measurements of length, mass, time, etc,, we are concened with the probability that a particular dimension lies between certain limiting values of that variable and for this we refer to the normal distribution curve. feo Normal distribution curve (or normal curve) We introduced the normal curve in Programme 28 (Frame S1) as the limiting curve to which a relative frequency polygon approaches as the number of classes is greatly increased, From a more theoretical approach, the equation of the normal curve is, in fact, we where = mean and o = standard deviation of the distribution This equation is not at all easy to deal with! In practice, it is convenient to convert a normal distribution into a standardized normal distribution having a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1 Standard normal curve 70 The conversion from normal distribution to standard normal distribution is achieved by the substitution z= oad which effectively moves the distribution curve along. the x-axis and reduces the scale of the horizontal units by dividing by 2. To keep the total area under the curve at unity, we multiply the y-values by o. The equation of the standardized normal curve then becomes y= 9) = 2H ts cated the standard nomal vara, a) he probity density faction Make a note of theseProbability 1107 Standard normal curve: 71 3 S210 | Le! | l [Fes | Leek Note the following (a) Mean 1 =0. (b) zvalues are in standard deviation units. (©) Total area under the curve from z = —se to z= +e = 1. (@) Area between z= a and z= represents the probability that z lies between the values z= a and z~ b, ie, Pla VBR