Descriptions of Shape
The shape of a distribution will fall somewhere in a continuum where a flat distribution might be considered central and where types of departure from this include: mounded (or unimodal), U-shaped, J-shaped, reverse-J shaped and multi-modal. A bimodal distribution would have two high points rather than one. The shape of a distribution is sometimes characterised by the behaviours of the tails (as in a long or short tail). For example a flat distribution can be said either to have no tails, or to have short tails. A normal distribution is usually regarded as having short tails, while an exponential distribution has exponential tails and a Pareto distribution has long tails.
Even in the relatively simple case of a mounded distribution, the distribution may be skewed to the left or skewed to the right, with symmetric corresponding to no skew.
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“The fundamental laws of physics do not describe true facts about reality. Rendered as descriptions of facts, they are false; amended to be true, they lose their explanatory force.”
—Nancy Cartwright (b. 1945)
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