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ERIC Number: EJ848323
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2006-Jul
Pages: 14
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1069-1898
EISSN: N/A
The Weight of Euro Coins: Its Distribution Might Not Be as Normal as You Would Expect
Shkedy, Ziv; Aerts, Marc; Callaert, Herman
Journal of Statistics Education, v14 n2 Jul 2006
Classical regression models, ANOVA models and linear mixed models are just three examples (out of many) in which the normal distribution of the response is an essential assumption of the model. In this paper we use a dataset of 2000 euro coins containing information (up to the milligram) about the weight of each coin, to illustrate that the normality assumption might be incorrect. As the physical coin production process is subject to a multitude of (very small) variability sources, it seems reasonable to expect that the empirical distribution of the weight of euro coins does agree with the normal distribution. Goodness of fit tests however show that this is not the case. Moreover, some outliers complicate the analysis. As alternative approaches, mixtures of normal distributions and skew normal distributions are fitted to the data and reveal that the distribution of the weight of euro coins is not as normal as expected. (Contains 9 figures and 4 tables.)
American Statistical Association. 732 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. Tel: 703-684-1221; Tel: 888-231-3473; Fax: 703-684-2037; e-mail: asainfo@amstat.org; Web site: http://www.amstat.org/publications/jse
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: Higher Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Belgium
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A