Name: Standard Normal Distribution
Uploaded: 2020-03-28T09:00:24.000Z
Duration: 4 min 28 s
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Before we understand this concept, we need to explain what a transformation is.

So, a transformation is a way in which we can alter every element of a distribution

to get a new distribution with similar characteristics.

For Normal Distributions we can use addition, subtraction, multiplication and division without

For instance, if we add a constant to every element of a Normal distribution, the new

Let’s discuss the four algebraic operations and see how each one affects the graph.

If we add a constant, like 3, to the entire distribution, then we simply need to move

Similarly, if we subtract a number from every element, we would simply move our current

If we multiply the function by a constant it will widen that many times and if we divide

every element by a number, the graph will shrink.

However, if we multiply or divide by a number between 0 and 1, the opposing effects will

For example, dividing by a half, is the same as multiplying by 2, so the graph would expand,

Now that you know what a transformation is, we can explain standardizing.

Standardizing is a special kind of transformation in which we make the expected value equal

The benefit of doing so, is that we can then use the cumulative distribution table from

The distribution we get after standardizing any Normal distribution, is called a “Standard

In addition to the “68, 95, 99.7” rule, there exists a table which summarizes the

most commonly used values for the CDF of a Standard Normal Distribution.

This table is known as the Standard Normal Distribution table or the “Z”- score table.

So far, we learned what standardizing is and why it is convenient.

What we haven’t talked about is how to do it.

First, we wish to move the graph either to the left, or to the right until its mean equals

The way we would do that is by subtracting the mean “mu” from every element.

After this to make the standardization complete, we need to make sure the standard deviation

To do so, we would have to divide every element of the newly obtained distribution by the

If we denote the Standard Normal Distribution with Z, then for any normally distributed

variable Y, “Z equals Y minus mu, over sigma”.

This equation expresses the transformation we use when standardizing.

Applying this single transformation for any Normal Distribution would result in a Standard

Normal Distribution, which is convenient.

Essentially, every element of the non-standardized distribution is represented in the new distribution

by the number of standard deviations it is away from the mean.

For instance, if some value y is 2.3 standard deviations away from the mean, its equivalent

Standardizing is incredibly useful when we have a Normal Distribution, however we cannot

always anticipate that the data is spread out that way.

A crucial fact to remember about the Normal distribution is that it requires a lot of

If our sample is limited, we run the risk of outliers drastically affecting our analysis.

In cases where we have less than 30 entries, we usually avoid assuming a Normal distribution.

However, there exists a small sample size approximation of a Normal distribution called

the Students’ T distribution and we are going to focus on it in our next lecture.

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Standard Normal Distribution

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