ABSTRACT
The early history of statistics involved probability and inference using large samples and the normal distribution. The standard normal curve provided a probability distribution that was bell-shaped for large samples, but was peaked for small samples, which resulted in larger probability areas in the tails of the distribution. At the turn of the century, a chemist named William S.Gossett, who was employed at a brewery in Dublin, Ireland, discovered the inadequacy of the normal curve for small samples. Gossett was concerned with the quality control of the brewing process and took small samples to test the beer, but didn’t obtain a normal bell-shaped curve when his results were graphed.
