what are my chances of growing?

Pre-College Topics High School Cafe
1

<p>Im 15 and 5’7. My dad is 5’6 and my mom is 5’1. The tallest person in my family is 6’0. What are my chances of growing to like 5’10/5’11?</p>

2

<p>5.431% chance</p>

3

<p>

</p>

<p>I think you need to check your math. I got 7.343%.</p>

4

<p>I’d say more like 5.420% chance. That’s with 4 significant digits…</p>

5

<p>post number 3 is right thats what i got but i wanted to post on here just to check</p>

6

<p>Mmm 4 significant digits sounds a bit too sure for me.</p>

7

<p>What I’m going to say sounds stupid but how do you calculate this percentage?</p>

8

<p>^He needs to grow 3.5 inches (5’7 to 5’10.5). You add his parents heights (=10’7), add two inches (10’9) and divide by two (5’4.5). This is his expected height. From here on, it is a simple Gaussian distribution, with 5’4.5 as the mean and standard deviation can easily be calculated. Now to calculate the probability of reaching 5’10.5, simply substitute the mean and standard deviation into the formula:</p>

<p>f(x) = 1/sqrt(2<em>pi</em>sigma^2) * e ^ -(x-mu^2)/(2sigma^2)</p>

<p>(Sorry, it looks very messy here: -> [Neater</a> version from Wikipedia](<a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/e/1/9e1e4a3af93c9680ba75669a0b69fbf6.png]Neater”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/e/1/9e1e4a3af93c9680ba75669a0b69fbf6.png))</p>

<p>You should get a value of approximately .07343. (Obviously, 7.343%)</p>

<p>You can read more about Gaussian Distributions [url=&lt;a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal_distribution]here[/url”&gt;Normal distribution - Wikipedia]here[/url</a>]. It’s all very interesting, really.</p>

9

<p>Oh thanks. I’ve actually done normal distribution in my stats class before but I’ve never applied to real life.</p>

10

<p>this is all a joke, right…</p>

11

<p>^Not anymore.</p>