Physics307L F09:Schedule/Week 5 agenda/CLT

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Central Limit Theorem

Experimentalist point of view

Assume there is some "parent distribution" for your possible experimental measurements

We want to estimate the mean of this parent distribution (why?)

If we take a few measurements and average them: the average is the best guess for the mean of the parent population AND if we repeat this many times, our averages will have a normal distribution about the population mean

Pretty good graphical demonstration: CLT