hadber / bellcurve

galton board simulation in python

What is this?

This is a simple python script to simulate a Galton board and generate a normal (Gaussian) distribution. You can find more about the Galton board on Wikipedia or by watching this excellent Vsauce video.

How does it work?

There are two files: bellcurve.py and sd.py. The first of the two is used to generate the data by simulating a ball dropped in a Galton board. The paramaters can be tweaked by changing the TOTAL_BALLS and TOTAL_LINES which change the amount of balls simulated respectively the amount of lines. The second script shows the probability to have CONSECUTIVE_START up to MAX_CONS balls go in the same direction (left or right) consecutively (example: right-right-right -> three times right).

Requirements

You need matplotlib to visualize the data. If you do not wish to do so, feel free to remove the plot functions.

Examples