R: Data Analysis and Visualization

Probability distributions

Up until this point, when we spoke of distributions, we were referring to frequency distributions. However, when we talk about distributions later in the book—or when other data analysts refer to them—we will be talking about probability distributions, which are much more general.

It's easy to turn a categorical, discrete, or discretized frequency distribution into a probability distribution. As an example, refer to the frequency distribution of carburetors in the first image in this chapter. Instead of asking What number of cars have n number of carburetors?, we can ask, What is the probability that, if I choose a car at random, I will get a car with n carburetors?

We will talk more about probability (and different interpretations ...