Peter:

What type of data do you want to populate this field? E.g. are they to be integers or real(floating) numbers or what? If non-integer, how many decimal places.

What range of x values are required, e.g. -3 to +3? What range of y values, e.g. 1 to 5.

If it is a standard normal distribution it will have a mean of 0 (i.e. be centred on zero) with a stand deviation of 1 (giving a measure of the spread of the distribution).

I tested the Excel function randbetween() for an x range of -2 to 2 and took it out to 60,000 rows. This gives quite a rough standard normal distribution (the population mean is 0.00506859 and the population standard deviation is 1.153937829)

The same parameters used with rand() gave a population mean of -0.006646157 and a population standard deviation of 1.156657729.

The Excel randbetween() function looks to be smidgen less rough than rand().

Heavy duty statistical packages like SPSS would have a much more refined ability to create standard normal distributions.

Have you thought more about how this field is going to be used and what restrictions are placed upon it?

Regards

Godfrey