The Instrument Simulating a Bivariate Gaussian Distribution Donated by Professor Salvatore Grillo

Instrument simulating the bivariate Gaussiana

In some statistical-probabilistic phenomena the results predicted by the theory can actually be verified by means of appropriate objects that can be considered true “Mathematical tools”.

By means of this object it is possible to simulate a Gauss surface of equation:

f(x,y) = 1⁄2π · e^{[(x-√6)2+(y-√6)2]}

whose theoretical form is the figure above right.

The figure below left was obtained by dropping into the instrument 200 balls. It is shown that if the number of balls is sufficiently large, in theory tending to infinity, the shape assumed by the balls approximates the Gauss surface.

The instrument was donated to the Mateureka Museum by Prof. Salvatore Grillo by Trecastagni (CT) and had already been realized, in a very simplified and artisanal form, together with the Prof. Giuseppe Lamartina by S. Agata Li Battiati (CT). He was the subject of article on the "Periodic of Mathematics" in 1998.