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In statistics, a symmetric probability distribution is a probability distribution—an assignment of probabilities to possible occurrences—which is unchanged when its probability density function (for continuous probability distribution) or probability mass function (for discrete random variables) is reflected around a vertical line at some ...
The Cauchy distribution, an example of a distribution which does not have an expected value or a variance. In physics it is usually called a Lorentzian profile, and is associated with many processes, including resonance energy distribution, impact and natural spectral line broadening and quadratic stark line broadening.
The Gaussian function is the archetypal example of a bell shaped function. A bell-shaped function or simply 'bell curve' is a mathematical function having a characteristic "bell"-shaped curve. These functions are typically continuous or smooth, asymptotically approach zero for large negative/positive x, and have a single, unimodal maximum at ...
The standard uniform distribution is a special case of the beta distribution, with parameters (1,1). The sum of two independent uniform distributions U 1 (a,b)+U 2 (c,d) yields a trapezoidal distribution, symmetric about its mean, on the support [a+c,b+d].
If we use instead of the normal distribution, e.g., the Irwin–Hall distribution, we obtain over-all a symmetric 4 parameter distribution, which includes the normal, the uniform, the triangular, the Student t and the Cauchy distribution. This is also more flexible than some other symmetric generalizations of the normal distribution.
In probability theory and statistics, the discrete uniform distribution is a symmetric probability distribution wherein each of some finite whole number n of outcome values are equally likely to be observed. Thus every one of the n outcome values has equal probability 1/n. Intuitively, a discrete uniform distribution is "a known, finite number ...
A common special case is the symmetric Dirichlet distribution, where all of the elements making up the parameter vector have the same value. The symmetric case might be useful, for example, when a Dirichlet prior over components is called for, but there is no prior knowledge favoring one component over another.
For example, a zero value in skewness means that the tails on both sides of the mean balance out overall; this is the case for a symmetric distribution but can also be true for an asymmetric distribution where one tail is long and thin, and the other is short but fat.