GNU Scientific Library – Reference Manual: Resampling from histograms

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### 23.9 Resampling from histograms

A histogram made by counting events can be regarded as a measurement of a probability distribution. Allowing for statistical error, the height of each bin represents the probability of an event where the value of x falls in the range of that bin. The probability distribution function has the one-dimensional form p(x)dx where,

    p(x) = n_i/ (N w_i)

In this equation n_i is the number of events in the bin which contains x, w_i is the width of the bin and N is the total number of events. The distribution of events within each bin is assumed to be uniform.