Jennifer Golbeck wrote:
>
> i hope someone can help me with this. i have finished a computer science
> study that examines swarming behavior. my claim is that the swarming
> algorithm that i use produces a gaussian distribution - on a grid, the
> frequency that each area is visited is recorded. graphs of my data looks
> like there is a normal distribution around the center of the area. i'd
> like to statistically show that it is a gaussian distribution.
>
> i'm not sure how i would do this. i could imagine doing a test on each row
> and each column to show that all of those are normal. even for that, i'm
> not sure what test to use to show that data follows a normal distribution.
> i feel like this is incredibly basic and i'm just overlooking something i
> should know...but i need help. any advice would be really appreciated.
It's impossible to do this.
You may be able to show it is a (discretised) gaussian analytically, by
deriving that from the problem set up, but you can't demonstrate that it
is gaussian just from the output. You can demonstrate that the gaussian
is a reasonable model for it. You can demonstrate that the deviations
from the gaussian are small. You can demonstrate that the gaussian is in
some sense a better model than a variety of plausible alternatives. But
you cannot demonstrate that it *is* gaussian from the output.
Glen
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