Bimodals

There are very few things that I remember from classes I've taken. One of them is the Bimodal, which I learned about in Statistics. We were learning about different types of curves and situations in which you would see them. The bimodal is the curve that defines the grade distribution in classrooms. What happens is that there are two normal curves right next to each other, one centered over D's and one centered over B's. Dr. Edwards said this is because there are two types of people: Those who try and those who don't. If everyone tried there would be a normal curve, but since there are two types of people there are two normal curves overlapping each other.

Anyway, I have seen two bimodal curves in fencing. First, the percentage of matches that the fencer wins and second the number of matches that the fencer has fought.

The first one starts out as a very drastic bimodal. Everyone either wins their first one or loses their first one. Everyone is either 100% or 0%. Obviously since for every winner there is a loser, there would be a bimodal. Interestingly, the curve become more and more normal as time progresses as people with good first days start having bad days and people with bad first days start having good days.

The second one starts out normal. Everyone fences pretty much the same number the first day. Everyone fights about 1-4 matches. However as time passes it becomes clear the people who fight four the first day will fight four for the rest of the season and people who fight one will only fight one a day for the rest of the season. Therefore in a matter of weeks there is a huge discrepancy in the number of matches and we have our bimodal: People who fence a lot and people who fence a little.