Member-only story
What is the difference between Probability Distribution Function and Cumulative Distribution Function?
In an attempt to improve upon my data science skills, I have been studying statistics for a few years now. Statistics goes hand in hand with computer programming to the extent that the language I am most familiar with, Python, has a library devoted specifically to statistical functions, being statsmodels. In addition, Python’s scientific library, scipy, has numerous statistical functions in it.
The statistical functions that I am primarily concerned with at the time of this writing are distributions. When I began studying distributions, I thought there would be a handful of distributions that I would need to study but, boy was I wrong. Excel, a spreadsheet software, has about 15 distributions and scipy, Python’s scientific library, has a hundred or more!
Two fundamental concepts in the field of probability and statistics are:-
- Probability distribution function (PDF)
- Cumulative distribution function (CDF)
Both the PDF and CDF serve completely different purposes in the statistical process.
Probability distribution function (PDF)
The PDF describes the likelihood of a random variable taking on a specific value. It is used to…
