what is a histogram

1 year ago 35
Nature

A histogram is a graphical representation of data points organized into user-specified ranges. It is a type of bar chart that shows the frequency or number of observations within different numerical ranges, called bins. The height of each bar represents the number of data points that fall within that bin. The bins are usually specified as consecutive, non-overlapping intervals of a variable. To construct a histogram, the first step is to "bin" the range of values, which means dividing the entire range of values into a series of intervals and then counting how many values fall into each interval. Histograms are used to display the distribution of numerical data. They are commonly used in quality control, finance, and scientific research. Histograms are a great way to show results of continuous data, such as weight, height, or time. They are similar to bar charts, but there are important differences between them. While bar charts are used to display categorical data, histograms are used to display continuous data.