The Irwin-Hall distribution is the distribution of the sum of a finite number of independent identically distributed uniform random variables on the unit interval. Many applications arise since round-off errors have a transformed Irwin-Hall distribution and the distribution supplies spline approximations to normal distributions. We review some of the distribution's history. The present derivation is very transparent, since it is geometric and explicitly uses the inclusion-exclusion principle. In certain special cases, the derivation can be extended to linear combinations of independent uniform random variables on other intervals of finite length. The derivation adds to the literature about methodologies for finding distributions of sums of random variables, especially distributions that have domains with boundaries so that the inclusion-exclusion principle might be employed.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Mathematical Association of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The College Mathematics Journal.

Our purpose is twofold: to present a prototypical example of the conditioning technique to obtain the best estimator of a parameter and to show that this technique resides in the structure of an inner product space. The technique uses conditioning of an unbiased estimator on a sufficient statistic. This procedure is founded upon the conditional variance formula, which leads to an inner product space and a geometric interpretation. The example clearly illustrates the dependence on the sampling methodology. These advantages show the power and centrality of this process.