I can't believe I can't figure this out.

[jferri]

Normal Standard Distribution Question:

I am looking to set up a spreadsheet where I have the following inputs:

1) A total number (e.g., 100) that I would like to distribute (normal standard distribution) over a variable number of data points.
2) The number of data points (e.g., 10) that I would like to distribute the Total Number over. Note: would like this number to be modifiable so I can easily change it to 8 or 20, or some other number and the Total Number is automatically redistributed over the new set number of data points.

I realize that I might need to write a bit of code to accomplish this, but was hoping that someone could begin pointing me in the right direction.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Pauljj]

I am not sure I fully understand. Are both points 1 & 2 being entered manually by a user ?

 

[jferri]

yes. I would like to see a standard normally distributed series (e.g., 10 points in the series) generated given number of points in the series, and the sum of the total series (e.g., 100).

Thank you for your help.

 

[Pauljj]

OK, forgive me if this seems obvious but can you give me an example of what would be entered from point 1 and what would be entered from point 2 and then finally what you would expect the result to be, also where would you expect the result to appear ?

 

[robw]

So to illustrate the problem you are trying to set...say you have 100 balls to throw randomly into 10 bins ( lined up in order 1 to 10) .... you want to know how many balls would end up in each bin if the distribution of your throwing was "Normal". Is that right?

 

[jferri]

Yes, that's correct robw. Thank you each for your looking into this. I was able to figure it out after having a cup of coffee this morning. I did the following:
1. Created a few functions to dynamically plot the number of "bins" depending on how many I wanted.
2. Assigned a normally distributed % to each bin by setting the mean to 0 and dynamically calculating the SD as a function of the # of bins (with the "fit" that I want).
3. Filled each bin by distributing the total value that I have as an input across each bin.
4. Graphed result.

Problem solved. Thanks for looking into it.