How Extraordinary are You?

The word "extraordinary" comes from the Latin phrase "extra ordimen," meaning "outside the normal course of events."

Image: Mwtoews

I recently found what I think is the best possible context for this word.


First, some background: I'll try to explain bell curves and standard deviation as best I can, but alternatively, you can find a really great explanation here, and skip the next two paragraphs (also feel free to skip the next two paragraphs if you're already well-versed in bell curves and standard deviation).





Let's say you are measuring the height of a large number of people. You find that the the average is 5'4". You also also discover that many people fall within a few inches of the average, and very few people deviate by more than a foot. When you put this data on a graph, you see that a large number of people have heights near the average and the graph tails off at both ends as these extreme heights get rarer and rarer. The graph you end up with is called bell curve, or normal distribution.

In the field of statistics there is a metric called the standard deviation. One standard deviation is roughly defined as "the two values that 68% of the population fall between." In the graph above, the dark blue region that falls between "-1σ," and "1σ" is one standard deviation. In the case of height, 68% of humans are between 4'8" and 6'0". These people are said to be within one standard deviation. For the purposes here, I'm going to call one standard deviation "ordinary."

My question became: "How can one be extra-ordinary, that is to say, exceedingly normal?"

On any particular bell curve, there is a 68% chance that you're 'normal.' If we look at two traits, say height and freckle-y-ness (real word, trust me), the chance you would be 'normal' on both charts is 0.68 x 0.68, or about 46%. This percentage goes down the more traits you add.

If you look at just 30 traits, the chance that you are 'normal' in all 30 drops to about one in a million. This means that nearly everyone strays from the norm in some unique way. If you are indeed exceedingly normal, or "extra ordinary," you're one in a million, and that is indeed... extraordinary.


Cheers,

     Scott



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