Calcs with Probability Distributions

[Dieter]

(04-19-2016 03:51 PM)sguth Wrote:  I'm a statistics professor, and I've long been annoyed that non-graphing scientific calculators don't have probability distribution functions. More college students take statistics than other college-level math courses, and scientific calculators have had trig functions since the 70s (absolutely useless for most students), but still no probability distributions.

Absolutely. Statistical distributions are used in many, if not most social sciences, and I think they should be available on every decent calculator. I never understood why this is not the case – maybe because implementing these functions is much less trivial than a log or hyperbolic sine.

(04-19-2016 03:51 PM)sguth Wrote:  Is there any other scientific (non-graphing) calculator that does cumulative/inverse normal, t, chi-square, and F distributions????

The 20B and 30B will calculate all these four major continuous distributions and their inverses, as well as the Binomial distribution. Although they are business oriented calculators, they also offer the common transdendental functions of their "scientific" counterparts (trig, log, powers, exponentials, even hyperbolics). And some more, like combinations and permutations, factorials, and even the Gamma function.

You could download the manual from HP's website and take a look at pp. 19...23 for an overview.

Dieter