Scribd
Upload
11 views1 page

w2c Central Limit

The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) states that the sum of many random outcomes tends to be Gaussian distributed under certain conditions, primarily requiring bounded mean and variance. It highlights that convergence to a Gaussian distribution is only meaningful close to the mean and warns against assuming Gaussian distribution for sums with constrained values. The document emphasizes the importance of understanding these conditions to avoid misinterpretation in statistical significance.

Uploaded by

zeliawillscumberg
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
11 views1 page

w2c Central Limit

The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) states that the sum of many random outcomes tends to be Gaussian distributed under certain conditions, primarily requiring bounded mean and variance. It highlights that convergence to a Gaussian distribution is only meaningful close to the mean and warns against assuming Gaussian distribution for sums with constrained values. The document emphasizes the importance of understanding these conditions to avoid misinterpretation in statistical significance.

Uploaded by

zeliawillscumberg
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 1

The Central Limit Theorem

The Central Limit Theorem (CLT) tells us that, under certain conditions, the result of adding
together many random outcomes is approximately Gaussian distributed.
There are multiple versions of the theorem with different technical conditions and details.
As is common, I’ll sloppily refer to the CLT. The most important conditions and details, as
you need to know it for this course, is outlined below. As we’re not going to use a formal
statement about the convergence to prove anything, I’m not going to be more precise.
Bounded mean and variance: The main requirement is that each outcome included in the
sum should come from a distribution with mean and variance below some fixed bound.
Intuitively, if really extreme outcomes are common, they can dominate the sum, and the
distribution of a single outcome can change the shape of the distribution of the sum away
from a bell-curve.
Constrained values: If we add together integers, then the sum can only be an integer, so
cannot be Gaussian distributed. In general, if some values of a sum are impossible, the
probability density function or mass function over the value of the sum still tends to a
function that’s proportional to a Gaussian PDF, but constrained to the possible values.
Convergence only close to the mean: Finally, the convergence guaranteed by the theory
is of a weak form (called “convergence in distribution”), which only provides meaningful
guarantees close to the mean. Only expect the PDF of the sum to be close to a Gaussian within
a small number of standard deviations of the mean. The extreme tails of the distribution
do not converge rapidly to a Gaussian. Don’t assume a sum is Gaussian distributed, and
then report statistical significance based on evaluating the Gaussian fit several standard
deviations away from its mean!
Further reading could start at Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_limit_theorem

1 Check your understanding


[The website version of this note has a question here.]

MLPR:w2c Iain Murray and Arno Onken, http://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/mlpr/2020/ 1

You might also like