The shape of the normal distribution resembles that of a bell, so it sometimes is referred to as the bell curve. In many natural processes, random variation conforms to a particular probability distribution known as the normal distribution, which is the most commonly observed probability distribution. Mathematicians de Moivre and Laplace used this distribution in the 1700's. In the early 1800's,
. German mathematician and physicist Karl Gauss used it to analyze astronomical data, and it consequently became known as the Gaussian distribution among the scientific community.
