Continuous Random Variables

In this section, we'll continue working with random variables. Here, we'll discuss continuous random variables. We will learn the key distinction between continuous and discrete probability distributions. In addition, we will introduce the mother of all distributions: the famous normal distribution. We will learn how to work with this distribution using scipy.stats and review its most important characteristics.

Defining Continuous Random Variables

There are certain random quantities that, in principle, can take any real value in an interval. Some examples are as follows:

• The price of the IBM stocks one week from now
• The number of calories ingested by a person in a day
• The closing exchange rate between the British pound and the Euro
• The height of a randomly chosen male from a specific group

Because of their nature, these variables are known as continuous random variables. As with discrete random variables, there...