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How do I create a bell curve?



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 11th, 2009, 04:48 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
A little stuck[_2_]
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Posts: 19
Default How do I create a bell curve?

I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be distributed over a
certain period of time. How do I do this?

Any help would be much appreciated.
  #2  
Old September 11th, 2009, 10:27 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
David Biddulph
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Posts: 8,714
Default How do I create a bell curve?

You may want the function NORMDIST. Look it up in Excel help.
--
David Biddulph

"A little stuck" wrote in message
...
I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be distributed over
a
certain period of time. How do I do this?

Any help would be much appreciated.



  #3  
Old September 11th, 2009, 04:35 PM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
James Silverton[_4_]
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Posts: 162
Default How do I create a bell curve?

A wrote on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:48:01 -0700:

I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be
distributed over a certain period of time. How do I do this?


Any help would be much appreciated.


Was it not suggested a week ago that you formulate the same question
more precisely, tho' David Bidduph's suggestion on NORMDIST should be
checked

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

  #4  
Old September 14th, 2009, 03:15 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
A little stuck[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19
Default How do I create a bell curve?

Thank you guys.

To be more precise:
Say I have a budget of 4,200,000 to distribute over one financial year. I'd
like to create a bell curve, which would split this value relatively evenly
over the 12 months (using whichever formula the bell curve needs so that the
distribution is slightly skewed towrds the positive x values). The purpose is
to have a nice graphical representation of the approximate distribution - the
values do not need to be exact).

"James Silverton" wrote:

A wrote on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:48:01 -0700:

I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be
distributed over a certain period of time. How do I do this?


Any help would be much appreciated.


Was it not suggested a week ago that you formulate the same question
more precisely, tho' David Bidduph's suggestion on NORMDIST should be
checked

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not


  #5  
Old September 14th, 2009, 04:38 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
A little stuck[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19
Default How do I create a bell curve?

Thanks guys.

To be more precise:
Say I had a budget of 4,200,000 to be distributed over the 12 months of a
financial year. I'd like to create a bell curve as a graphical representation
of the financial distribution over this time, using whatever formula needed
to create a normal looking bell curve (but slightly skewed towards the
positive values on the x axis). Thus, the values don't have to be exact, so
long as the overall budget amount is correct, and the bell curve appears as
described above.

I'm not sure how to do create this bell curve.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

"James Silverton" wrote:

A wrote on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:48:01 -0700:

I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be
distributed over a certain period of time. How do I do this?


Any help would be much appreciated.


Was it not suggested a week ago that you formulate the same question
more precisely, tho' David Bidduph's suggestion on NORMDIST should be
checked

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not


  #6  
Old September 14th, 2009, 02:42 PM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
James Silverton[_4_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 162
Default How do I create a bell curve?

A wrote on Sun, 13 Sep 2009 19:15:01 -0700:

To be more precise:
Say I have a budget of 4,200,000 to distribute over one
financial year. I'd like to create a bell curve, which would
split this value relatively evenly over the 12 months (using
whichever formula the bell curve needs so that the
distribution is slightly skewed towrds the positive x values).
The purpose is to have a nice graphical representation of the
approximate distribution - the values do not need to be
exact).


"James Silverton" wrote:


A wrote on Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:48:01 -0700:

I'd like to create a bell curve with certain values to be
distributed over a certain period of time. How do I do
this?


Any help would be much appreciated.


Was it not suggested a week ago that you formulate the same
question more precisely, tho' David Bidduph's suggestion on
NORMDIST should be checked


If you don't want an exact normal curve, why don't you just hand sketch
a curve, read off the numbers and draw a smooth curve thro' them.

--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

  #7  
Old September 15th, 2009, 01:49 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
Herbert Seidenberg
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,113
Default How do I create a bell curve?

Excel 2007
Skewed Normal Distribution
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nmdmvyyvndj/09_14_09.xlsx
  #8  
Old September 16th, 2009, 06:23 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
A little stuck[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 19
Default How do I create a bell curve?

Thanks to all of you.
I am trying to use the NORMDIST function to create my bell curve, and am
putting the following values into a table:
84000
126000
210000
252000
294000
336000
378000
420000
462000
504000
546000
588000
However, the function is returning '0' for all of them. Eg. for the first
value I entered: =NORMDIST(B79, 350000, 1.5, TRUE), then: =NORMDIST(B80,
350000, 1.5, TRUE) for the second value etc. What am I doing wrong?

"Herbert Seidenberg" wrote:

Excel 2007
Skewed Normal Distribution
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nmdmvyyvndj/09_14_09.xlsx

  #9  
Old September 16th, 2009, 08:42 AM posted to microsoft.public.excel.charting
David Biddulph
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 8,714
Default How do I create a bell curve?

For a distribution with a mean of 350000 and a standard deviation of 1.5,
your value of 84000 is 177333 standard deviations below the mean, so what
would you expect the cumulative probability to be? Zero sounds a good
approximation to me.
When you get down your table to 378000, you switch from a large number of
standard deviations below the mean to 18667 standard deviations above the
mean, and then the cumulative probability steps up to 1. Isn't that what
you'd expect?

Have you looked again at Excel help for the NORMDIST function to remind
yourself what it does and what the syntax is? What were you expecting the
function to tell you?
--
David Biddulph

"A little stuck" wrote in message
...
Thanks to all of you.
I am trying to use the NORMDIST function to create my bell curve, and am
putting the following values into a table:
84000
126000
210000
252000
294000
336000
378000
420000
462000
504000
546000
588000
However, the function is returning '0' for all of them. Eg. for the first
value I entered: =NORMDIST(B79, 350000, 1.5, TRUE), then: =NORMDIST(B80,
350000, 1.5, TRUE) for the second value etc. What am I doing wrong?

"Herbert Seidenberg" wrote:

Excel 2007
Skewed Normal Distribution
http://www.mediafire.com/file/nmdmvyyvndj/09_14_09.xlsx



 




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