Scales and Transformations

Certain data distributions will find themselves amenable to scale transformations. The most common example of this is data that follows an approximately log-normal distribution. This is data that, in their natural units, can look highly skewed: lots of points with low values, with a very long tail of data points with large values. However, after applying a logarithmic transform to the data, the data will follow a normal distribution. (If you need a refresher on the logarithm function, check out this lesson on Khan Academy.)