T Distribution
Candlefocus EditorThe t-distribution is often referred to as the Student's t-distribution or Student's t-distribution. This is in honour of the mathematician W. Sealy Gosset, who wrote a paper in 1908 under the pseudonym Student and is credited with the original discovery of the distribution.
Much like the normal distribution, the t-distribution is bell-shaped and symmetrical. However, it has heavier tails, meaning that it tends to produce values that are far from its mean. This makes it especially useful in testing theories where extreme values may be expected. The t-distribution is also pivotal in hypothesis testing. Specifically, t-tests are used to assess the significance of a hypothesis by calculating the probability of observing a difference between two samples.
The t-distribution is useful in research as it allows researchers to estimate the true value of the mean based on a sample. It is also useful in hypothesis testing because of its ability to accommodate the variation that may be present in a sample. Furthermore, it can be used to measure the significance of inferences drawn from datasets.
Ultimately, the t-distribution is a versatile probability distribution that is used in all branches of statistics to measure significance and calculate probabilities. It is especially useful in hypothesis testing and research as it is capable of producing more extreme values than other distributions.