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A foray into the functions that apply to continuous distributions
I have been studying statistics for a few years now and one thing that I have discovered is that whenever I learn one concept, I realise there are other concepts that I have yet to learn.
As I have begun studying distributions, I have realised that there are several functions that can be used with those distributions to help to calculate values associated with the distribution.
With regard to continuous distributions, of which the normal distribution is one, there are five functions that can be applied:-
- Probability density function (PDF)
- Cumulative distribution function (CDF)
- Percent point function (PPT)
- Survival function
- Hazard function
In this blog I intend to explore each of the five functions listed above.
Probability density function (PDF)
The PDF of a continuous random variable X describes the likelihood of the variable taking on a specific value. Unlike discrete random variables, where the probability is expected to be an exact value, with continuous random variables, the probability of x being a specific value is zero. Instead, the PDF is used to calculate the probability that a value will be…
