Normal distribution

A visit to the Boston Museum of Science today with the girls. We had to collect our train tickets in Boston for next week's epic cross-country journey, and went to the Science Museum as well.

This is my all time favourite museum exhibit - it is a practical demonstration of the Central Limit Theorem. Balls drop from the centre at the top, can bump around on the way down (several Binomial choices) and then end up in various bins at the bottom. The balls form a Normal Distribution and the curve is also marked on the side.

Laplace's comment makes sense, if you have the right kind of mathematical common sense, something many of my students didn't seem to have!!? And then there's the Birthday Paradox where common sense seems to disappear.

Bit stuck for geocaches today, but hopeful for an earthcache from the Rock Garden at the Museum. Need to work out all the answers though, I took loads of photos to deal with it at home.