OK, I have no interest in OP Strength, but you comments about statistics and bell curve got me - Edit 2
Before modification by BlackAdder at 18/12/2009 12:21:50 AM
First, RJ told us Egwene and co. come one step below the Forsaken and Moiraine and the strongest Aes Sedai a step below them. You completely ignore this by placing Moiraine at 25, Egwene at 40 and Moghedien at 65! A wider range of numbers called one below the other I've never seen.
Second, by placing the strongest AS at 25 and the weakest at 10, you raise some startling implications from RJ's comments on the Bell Curve.
First, 62.5% of channelers (male or female) are strong enough to be Aes Sedai by modern standards. By your placement, this means 37.5% of women are weaker than Daigian.
But if we take a bell curve distribution to the strength range of 1 to 100, this means strength range 90 to 100 will also consist of roughly 37.5% of channelers. The only way to avoid this is to have a skewed bell curve, which RJ has said the distribution is not.
The worst, though, is the assumption made that the 21 levels are not evenly distributed. Most of the lists you and Sidious come up with have AS from 10-25, with increments of 1 since we know there are a load of levels among the AS. However, there are sudden jumps when you go from Moiraine to Cadsuane and then Caddy to Egwene, and then on to the Forsaken. On exactly what basis are you making the assumption that the 21 levels are not equally distributed in the strength range of 1 to 100? Especially with a bell curve distribution showing that RJ gave a load of thought to this.
For gods sake, if the range of a bell curve is 1 to 100, then the variable will cluster around the mean, meaning the highest number of women will be of strength 50. This is a mathematical fact, not a matter of perspective. And yet, you want to place someone of as rare strength as Egwene below this point and also all of the Aes Sedai?
Second, by placing the strongest AS at 25 and the weakest at 10, you raise some startling implications from RJ's comments on the Bell Curve.
First, 62.5% of channelers (male or female) are strong enough to be Aes Sedai by modern standards. By your placement, this means 37.5% of women are weaker than Daigian.
But if we take a bell curve distribution to the strength range of 1 to 100, this means strength range 90 to 100 will also consist of roughly 37.5% of channelers. The only way to avoid this is to have a skewed bell curve, which RJ has said the distribution is not.
The worst, though, is the assumption made that the 21 levels are not evenly distributed. Most of the lists you and Sidious come up with have AS from 10-25, with increments of 1 since we know there are a load of levels among the AS. However, there are sudden jumps when you go from Moiraine to Cadsuane and then Caddy to Egwene, and then on to the Forsaken. On exactly what basis are you making the assumption that the 21 levels are not equally distributed in the strength range of 1 to 100? Especially with a bell curve distribution showing that RJ gave a load of thought to this.
For gods sake, if the range of a bell curve is 1 to 100, then the variable will cluster around the mean, meaning the highest number of women will be of strength 50. This is a mathematical fact, not a matter of perspective. And yet, you want to place someone of as rare strength as Egwene below this point and also all of the Aes Sedai?
If it's true that RJ has said OP strength follows a normal distribution, then a 1-100 scale is probably not a great scale to use. As you go more standard deviations out at the extreme, the change in OP strength should stay the same (the amount of the standard deviation). No so in this scale.
So, the first thing that needs to be done is use a different scale that better illustrates OP differences.
When RJ talks about difference in steps, I would assume that means standard deviation in terms of statistics and his reference to bell curve.