"People who don't count won't count." - (Anatole France, 1844-1924)

"Mighty is geometry; joined with art, resistless." - (Euripides, 480 - 406 B.C.)

Math History Tidbit:

Arthur Cayley, 1821-1895: An English mathematician who founded the theory of quantics (algebraic functions with two or more variables), Cayley also devised a noncommutative matrix algebra and contributed significantly to quantum mechanics and the theory of manifolds.

Herkimer's Corner

When Herkimer lived in a grass hut, why wouldn't he allow a friend to store a royal chair in his dwelling?

Answer: He was told that people who live in grass houses shouldn't stow thrones.

 

Herky wants to know:

When cheese gets its picture taken, what is it supposed to say?

Since croutons are stale bread to begin with, why do they come in airtight packages?

ASSIGNMENT #68

Reading: Section 11.1 (pages 586-596)

Cartoon Guide to Statistics (pages 107-109)

Section 11.1 Section Summary (Herkimer's Hideaway) up to Example 2

Exercises: None, but read carefully. Study the examples in the reading.

Items for reflection:

You are working in Section 11.1

When sample sizes are small and the populationstandard deviation is not known, statisticians make use of thet-distribution. This distribution is bell-shaped, but it differs from the normaldistribution. (Page 108 of CartoonGuide displays some nice pictures.) There is a t-distribution table that differs from the normaldistribution table. As sample sizes get larger, the t-distributionapproaches the normal distribution in shape. In a one-sample test,the degrees of freedom (needed to use the table) is one less than thesample size.

LINK TO SECTIONSUMMARIES

LINK TO STATISTICS HOMEPAGE

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Text:
The Practice of Statistics, by Yates, Moore, McCabe. New York,W.H. Freeman and Company, 1999. (;l 0-7167-3370-6)

Supplemental books:
The Cartoon Guide to Statistics, by Gonick and Smith. NewYork, HarperCollins Publishers, 1993. (ISBN 0-06-273102-5)
How to Lie with Statistics, by Darrell Huff. New York, W.W.Norton & Company, 1982 (ISBN 0-393-09426-X)

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