0.2 - 0.18 - 0.16 - 0.14 0.12 - 0.1 0.08 0.06 0.04 0.02 100 120 140 160 180 200220 240 260 280 300 320 340 Serum Cholesterol (mg/dL) Relative Frequency
Continuous Probability Distributions
Probability distributions are of two types, which are continuous probability distributions and discrete probability distributions. A continuous probability distribution contains an infinite number of values. For example, if time is infinite: you could count from 0 to a trillion seconds, billion seconds, so on indefinitely. A discrete probability distribution consists of only a countable set of possible values.
Normal Distribution
Suppose we had to design a bathroom weighing scale, how would we decide what should be the range of the weighing machine? Would we take the highest recorded human weight in history and use that as the upper limit for our weighing scale? This may not be a great idea as the sensitivity of the scale would get reduced if the range is too large. At the same time, if we keep the upper limit too low, it may not be usable for a large percentage of the population!
The figure below is a histogram showing the distribution of serum cholesterol level for a sample of men. Use the histogram to answer the following questions:
a) Is the percentage of men with cholesterol levels above 240 mg/dL closest to 30%, 50%, or 70%?
b) In which interval are there more men: 240–260 mg/dL or 280–340 mg/dL?
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