Probability and Random Distributions1 Sometimes we find what we are looking for, and sometimes we don't. We can look in large or small places or in one or many places (sample spaces). We can calculate the probability of finding an entity in our sample space if we know how many total entities there are and how they are distributed. Random distributions are a factor in cereal chemistry and can cause quality problems and even mislead us if we don't recognize them. People tend to be uneasy about accepting randomness and want to see uniformity where there is no reason for uniformity. The “law of averages” does not exist. We have formulas to predict random distributions and statistics to test “goodness of fit” between predictions and actual observations. These formulas are readily available in statistical software and spreadsheets. |