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abstraction > mathematical concept > statistical concept > statistical distribution > Maxwell distribution

Maxwell distribution comparison table

Subject	is an instance of	is a kind of	has definition
statistical distribution		statistical concept	The range of variation of some quantity in a population, obtained by sampling many members of the population. For example, the statistical distribution of the height of American males could be obtained by sampling 10,000 randomly chosen males and counting the number of them within each range of heights. In cosmology, the distance between pairs of galaxies, averaged over a large number of galaxies, would constitute a statistical distribution.
Maxwell distribution	statistical distribution		The distribution function that any species of particle will have if it is in thermodynamic equilibrium. This distribution function describes both the equilibrium in velocity space or kinetic energy, and the equilibrium in potential energy.

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