Re: Quick not on Disk 18a

[Andrew Bennett <andrew.bennett@ns.sympatico.ca>]

On Sun, 20 May 2001 15:50:09 -0400, Stupendous Man
<richmond@a188-l009.rit.edu> wrote:

>...
>Let me illustrate with a little ASCII art:
>
>
>           true pixel values                   values with sticky ADC
>
>      |        ...                         |          . .
>      |       .   .                        |
> Num  |                                    |            
>      |      .     .                       |        .     .
>  of  |                                    |           .
>      |     .       .                      |         .   .
> pix  |                                    |      .        . .
>      |    .         .                     |      
>      |   .           .                    |    .  .        . .
>      | ..             ..                  |  .. .             ..
>      ________________________             ___________________________
>
>         pixel value                            pixel value
>
>
>  Fitting a gaussian to the histogram on the left is easy.  Fitting
>a gaussian to the histogram on the right is NOT easy.  
Plot the cumulative distribution instead.
You'll never spot that there's anything wrong :)

(and estimate the gaussian standard deviation from
the probable error so you needn't worry about the
tails.)

Andrew Bennett, Avondale Vineyard