There have been a lot of posts centered around One Power strength, and the bell curve. Having been on vacation, I've read these posts with enthusiasim and coy amusement (it's nice to get some good debate going on this board).

That said, I'd like to raise some points regarding things I've seen. I'm also going to leave male channelers out of this entirely because some posters froth at the mouth as soon as saidin and saidar are compared even from a distance.

Previous Posts

1. As mentioned before, everyone is toying around with things they probably don't understand as well as they think they do. RJ was a physicist and knew his subject well, and most people here are not proficient at mathematics and statistics. It took some striking posts from people who actually knows their subject in the form of Abunderment and Amirebram to demonstrate the shocking misuse of the bell curve to demonstrate people's points. The most important thing about the bell curve is that it is a frequency distribution that describes the prevalence of a strength level. Therefore, if there are 20 levels of strength and the graph peaks at level 10, it does not mean that level 20 is twice as strong, despite this being the flawed contention of other posters. As mentioned in one of their posts, the data is not in the graph, merely the frequency of that data. Therefore, the bell curve statements by RJ are close to irrelevant when trying to work out the actual strengths of various women. We merely know from his statements how common certain levels of strength are.

2. Secondly, one of the posters, an electrical engineer says that the term bell curve is used very loosely in his profession to describe anything with a peak that tapers off. There is no evidence that RJ's bell curve is one of a pure gaussian distribution. It's possible, but not probable, that he was describing this sentiment. If one professional can do it, it's not beyond belief that RJ could too.

3. Any of the radical strength levels could be outliers - we don't even know which ones. It's possible that women above Egwene in strength are such women. It's even probable that Morgase is an outlier considering she is very much weaker than even Sorilea. Morgase can only touch saidar one in a thousand times and is profoundly weak - there is a vast potential for strength levels between a woman like her and a weak woman like Daigian.

4. It is wrong to assume that Moiraine has a potential strength of 50 out of 100. Moiraine has been used as the mean-median-mode on several occasions in previous posts, which is not supported by the text. The reason this was done was to promote plausibility to this IMO weak theory : by claiming that the strongest Aes Sedai is half as strong as Lanfear you can at least gain some credibility compared to a theory that Lanfear is twice as strong as Vandene (or the true median strength). However, we know from Elayne in ACoS (Next door to a weaver) that Sheriam's strength is uncommon in women, and thus the true peak in female strength is far below this. This means that Moiraine is far above the peak in female strength, which has always been true. Once again, the bell curve cannot be used for exact data, only channeler prevalence at particular levels.

5. RJ changed his own ideas. Brandon says there are two strength lists - one with Nynaeve at the top, one with her not at the top. The latter list probably includes the Forsaken, we don't know. Still, he couldn't apply the bell curve to the first list and hold it steadfast by adding a range of channelers above Nynaeve later. He also couldn't set a bell curve on the second list considering it wasn't drawn up yet. Therefore, the curve is vague at best.

True female strengths

So what is the strength of the average woman? Well, Egwene says in TPoD (Beginnings) that out of 1000 novices, most by far would never reach the shawl. However, RJ said that using a bell curve, 62.5% of women would attain the shawl. One must assume that everyone above the median value and 12.5% below it will attain the shawl. Daigian, being the weakest woman in the Tower is therefore in the vicinity of this level, which by definition means that 37.5% of women are weaker than her. This is factual evidence from RJ. We also know from TPoD (Alliances) that Sorilea is weak enough in the Power to make Daigian look strong, which reinforces the idea that many women fall into this one-third void of weakness below Daigian.

We see from Galina in ACoS (Spears) that none of the Shaido Wise Ones are truly weak in the Power, though she could break through the weakest's (Micara) shield with little difficulty. Galina says that few women in the Tower are as strong as her, meaning she is probably as strong as Sheriam. We've been told that most women in the Tower treat Daigian little better than a servant and Galina is unlikely to be much better when referring to low strength levels. It's therefore not unreasonable to assume that all of the Shaido Wise Ones are stronger than Daigian.

Therefore - about a third of women are weaker than Daigian in the Power. Most of Egwene's one thousand novices are weaker than Daigian by far meaning they fall into this area - which is proof that Egwene's sample is skewed. The Shaido are also skewed, however, being stronger than they should be, with none of their number being weak in the Power. Therefore, true sampling is still not present in the series that we know of.

We know that Siuan is less than 50% as strong as she used to be. She said that even if Nynaeve healed her to 50% of her previous strength, most Aes Sedai would be as strong, and a great deal would be stronger. Therefore, most Aes Sedai lie between 50-100% of Siuan's original strength. But not all - Siuan despite being weakened is not the weakest woman in the Tower. She's possibly a third as strong as she used to be, and total Aes Sedai strength may lie between 20 - 100% of her original strength. This, I believe is a range of 5-25 out of a potential of 100, though that is my personal theory.

Therefore we can assume the following ...
- Almost all of Egwene's novices are weaker than Daigian. (<37.5% on the bell curve)
- Hundreds of Shaido Wise Ones are as strong as Daigain. (>37.5% on the bell curve)
- 1000 Aes Sedai are stronger than Daigian. (>37.5% on the bell curve)

- This sample of about 3000 channelers shows that about 1/3 of women cannot reach the shawl whereas 2/3 can, just like RJ said.

Absolute strength

Some small inferences...

- Egwene is strong enough in the Power to overwhelm both Amys and Melaine. Amys is as strong as Moiraine, and Melaine a little weaker. Therefore because Egwene is said to be even stronger than this, she is stronger than a strong Aes Sedai and an average Aes Sedai combined. We already know factually that Siuan (Amys's strength) was once twice as strong as some Aes Sedai, and that most women in the Tower are as strong as that, and a great deal stronger. So let's place average Aes Sedai strength at 1 and Amys/Siuan at 1.25. Therefore Egwene is at least 2.25 in strength even if you look at it rather negatively. Aviendha said that she was even stronger than this, but she's at least this strong.

- Egwene says that Rand is stronger than both she and Aviendha combined (TFOH - This place, this day). Egwene and Aviendha are not at full strength, but it doesn't matter because Aviendha's statement on Egwene's strength predates this. Now I agreed to leave men out of this debate, but Rand is pretty much as strong as Lanfear according to RJ himself. However, we know that he wasn't at his full strength yet - he equated Rahvin's strength to his own, and later Sammael's, and therefore was certainly not as strong as Lanfear at this point considering the strongest man and woman are a match. Therefore, double Egwene's minimum strength of 2.25 and get Lanfear's minimum strength of 4.5.

This once again fits into my own personal theory of female strength...
- Aes Sedai 20 (range 5 - 25)
- Egwene 50
- Nynaeve 90
- Lanfear 100

It's all very iffy, and I don't claim that it's totally accurate, but it keeps in line with most of the quotes in the series and with what the author has told us.

As a small example Rand says that he can handle three women if they aren't too strong, but he might be in trouble if one if Moghedien or Semirhage (LoC - Gifts).
- 3 Aes Sedai = 20x3 = 60.
- 2 Aes Sedai + Semirhage = 20+20+85 = 125.
Lews Therin says he definitely cannot handle seven women (LoC - the Mirror of Mists) : 20x7 = 140.

Nynaeve vs Egwene/Elayne/Aviendha

There's been a lot of debate around this, and some posters such as myself believe that Nynaeve is much stronger than Egwene (90 vs 50), and others think they aren't too far apart (90 vs 80).

One can safely fall back on Moiraine's statement that Nynaeve is like a bonfire next to Egwene and Elayne. It's a statement of magnitude, if not of detail, and it at least means something.

However, I just want to throw in one small added debate, and that is growth in strength. We know that women grow in strength at a steady pace, and that the stronger you are the faster you grow. You also grow faster if you're forced. Now, compare the strength progression of these two women...

Books 1 and 2
minimal channeling ability

Book 3
Nynaeve - as strong as any Sister in the Tower
Egwene - stronger than Liandrin

Book 4
Nynaeve - much stronger than Egwene (Egwene says that Rand handled her and Elayne like puppies, but that maybe Nynaeve would be able to challenge him. TSR - Playing with Fire)

Egwene - stronger than Moiraine.

Book 5
Nynaeve - as strong as Moghedien (in the last section of the previous book already). This already exceeds Egwene's maximum potential.

Egwene - stronger than Amys and Melaine.

Now, both women are growing in strength. They have probably reached their potential, but as late as WH that was in doubt. I think the strength progression speaks for its self, and shows a wide difference in potentials between the two women. Not only that, but Egwene has the 'advantage' in that she was forced, and Nynaeve the 'disadvantage' in that she was blocked. I'm sure some people will see it differently, but I think it's self-evident that Egwene is much weaker than Nynaeve, though both are women of rare strength.