A classic question of logic is: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In thi

Question

A classic question of logic is: Which came first, the chicken or the egg? In this class, we might adapt that question for exploring the various probability distributions we've seen this week and last week. Many things we analyze as engineers can be best understood as manifestations in the world of the probabilities these distributions describe. Knowing the appropriate descriptive distribution allows us to make predictions about what has happened, or will happen, in the world. Discuss how you would explain to a non-engineering manager why, when, and how you would make use of these distributions in order to solve a problem or address an opportunity. What would you need to start, and what you have after your analysis?

Explanation / Answer

In statistics, often we are dealing with 'infinite population'; e.g. human population in Asia, population of college students in USA etc. Basically we are interested to know about certain characteristic of these group of individuals rather than the individual themselves. For this purpose, we need to draw a sample from the population. Here comes the usefulness of probability distribution.

The underlying probability distribution of the population can tell us various properties of the population (like mean, median, mode, skewness, kurtosis etc). So, knowing the distribution of the population is our main interest while dealing a statistical analysis.

E.g. if we know that the height of people from Asia follows a Normal Distribution with mean 5'8" and sd 7, then we will know almost everything about the population.

So, our first task is to address the probability distribution of a population. For that, we should draw a sample and find the distribution and its parameters. This will give us the overall idea of the population of interest.

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