Student's t-distribution

In probability and statistics, Student's t-distribution (or simply the t-distribution) is any member of a family of continuous probability distributions that arises when estimating the mean of a normally distributed population in situations where the sample size is small and population standard deviation is unknown. It was developed by William Sealy Gosset under the pseudonym Student. Whereas a normal distribution describes a full population, t-distributions describe samples drawn from a full population; accordingly, the t-distribution for each sample size is different, and the larger the sample, the more the distribution resembles a normal distribution.