Bean machine
Máquina de Galton
- Date
- c. 1873 · confidence medium
- Place
- London, England, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Francis Galton
- Field
- Knowledge & symbols
What it is
A mechanical device — a pegboard through which balls fall — illustrating the central limit theorem, showing how the binomial distribution approximates a normal distribution as the number of trials grows; devised by Francis Galton to illustrate regression to the mean.
What it led to
- Visual popularization of statistics and probability
- A teaching illustration of the central limit theorem
- A precedent for physical Monte Carlo–style simulations