  A long-standing issue in the area of granular media is the tail of the force
distribution, in particular whether this is exponential, Gaussian, or even some
other form. Here we resolve the issue for the case of the force network
ensemble in two dimensions. We demonstrate that conservation of the total area
of a reciprocal tiling, a direct consequence of local force balance, is crucial
for predicting the local stress distribution. Maximizing entropy while
conserving the tiling area and total pressure leads to a distribution of local
pressures with a generically Gaussian tail that is in excellent agreement with
numerics, both with and without friction and for two different contact
networks.
