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This means that the sum of two independent normally distributed random variables is normal, with its mean being the sum of the two means, and its variance being the sum of the two variances (i.e., the square of the standard deviation is the sum of the squares of the standard deviations). [1]
Both involve the sum of independent and identically-distributed random variables and show how the probability distribution of the sum approaches the normal distribution as the number of terms in the sum increases. The first illustration involves a continuous probability distribution, for which the random variables have a probability density ...
The probability distribution of the sum of two or more independent random variables is the convolution of their individual distributions. The term is motivated by the fact that the probability mass function or probability density function of a sum of independent random variables is the convolution of their corresponding probability mass functions or probability density functions respectively.
Let a random variable ξ be normally distributed and admit a decomposition as a sum ξ=ξ 1 +ξ 2 of two independent random variables. Then the summands ξ 1 and ξ 2 are normally distributed as well. A proof of Cramér's decomposition theorem uses the theory of entire functions.
A sum of discrete random variables is still a discrete random variable, so that we are confronted with a sequence of discrete random variables whose cumulative probability distribution function converges towards a cumulative probability distribution function corresponding to a continuous variable (namely that of the normal distribution).
The i.i.d. assumption is also used in the central limit theorem, which states that the probability distribution of the sum (or average) of i.i.d. variables with finite variance approaches a normal distribution. [4] The i.i.d. assumption frequently arises in the context of sequences of random variables. Then, "independent and identically ...
In probability theory, the central limit theorem says that, under certain conditions, the sum of many independent identically-distributed random variables, when scaled appropriately, converges in distribution to a standard normal distribution.
A random variable with a Gaussian distribution is said to be normally distributed, and is called a normal deviate. Normal distributions are important in statistics and are often used in the natural and social sciences to represent real-valued random variables whose distributions are not known.