Chapter 4

Distribution Functions

Definitions and Some Concepts

Sometimes it is possible to represent random variables as a function in a way that the function can determine the probability of an outcome of the random variable.

Definition 4.1

The outcome of a random variable is determined by chance. The outcome of a random variable might be constant as in the case of observing a head when a coin is flipped, or it can be a variable value such as the length of time it takes for different students to learn this chapter. The subject “statistics” is used to study the properties of random variables and how they behave.

Definition 4.2

The probability distribution determines the probability of the outcomes of a random variable. In its simplest form, ...

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