What is the measured distribution of block times since Homestead?

Question

The variance of block times should arguably follow a Poisson distribution. But by casual observation I've seen blocks fast as 4 s or 1 m 15 s. The average is around 14 s since Homestead.
If it follows a Poisson distribution it would have not that huge variance I observe:

What is the true distribution of block times in Homestead, derived from empirical observation?

Roland Kofler · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-11T18:59:50.113

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First of all it seems that I am too ignorant to understand Poissons Lamda!
At least I have some R skills left:

Summary:
 Min. 1st Qu.  Median    Mean 3rd Qu.    Max. 
   1.00    5.00   10.00   14.35   19.00  155.00

Interpretation: if you take the mean and forget the stupid outliers we count with only 10 s block time!

The good news: 99% blocks are under 1 min

 quantile(blocktimes$blocktime, c(.9,.95,.99))
 90% 95% 99% 
 31  40  61

The peak is around 2.9 s

Source code on Github

edited Jun 11 '16 at 18:59

answered Jun 11 '16 at 07:46

Roland Kofler

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In your raw data, did you find any blocktimes where the blocktime is earlier than the parent blocktime? See Can a child block have an earlier timestamp than the parent block?. – BokkyPooBah Jun 11 '16 at 16:04
Answered your question there :-) – Roland Kofler Jun 11 '16 at 17:29

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 10 '16 at 15:38

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Please see these statistics from etherchain.org: https://stats.etherchain.org/dashboard/db/average-block-time?theme=light :)

answered Jun 10 '16 at 15:38

Péter Szilágyi

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Sorry but it shows only the daily average block time. I'm looking for the statistical distribution of block times. A man with one hand in the freezer and one in the oven can enjoy room temperature on average ;-) – Roland Kofler Jun 10 '16 at 15:41
added more details – Roland Kofler Jun 10 '16 at 16:05

What is the measured distribution of block times since Homestead?

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