How to choose bins in matplotlib histogram

Question

Can someone explain to me what \"bins\" in histogram are (the matplotlib hist function)? And assuming I need to plot the probability density function of some data, how do th

Answer 1

To complemented jakes answer, you can use numpy.histogram_bin_edges if you just want to calculate the optimal bin edges, without actually doing the histogram. histogram_bin_edges is a function specifically designed for the optimal calculation of bin edges. You can choose seven different algorithms for the optimisation.