Saturday, April 12
AP Statistics students.
In your mailboxes you will find two sheets.
One is an attempted summary on my part of the various distributions we have
studied.
The second is a very good Chi Square example (we're beginning a study of Chi
Square).
I suggest keeping the sheets for review... and also that you consider taking
them off to college along with you statistics book, notes, etc. (You're not
going to throw any of this real stuff away at the end of the academic year, are
you? It will be very valuable in college. Note that I said "will," not "may
be.")
Keep up communications with Iowa.
Don't forget vignettes (Rah, rah!)
What follows are some statistical quotes. As you know, I love mathematical
quotes, humor, etc. Some of these you have seen before. If you are not
interested in these, there is no need to read on. However, if you have a few
spare moments and do read on, analyze the statistical nature of these quotes.
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"The most important questions of life are, for the most part, really problems
of probability."
(LaPlace, 18th century French mathematician)
"Get the facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please."
(Mark Twain)
"It is now proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that smoking is one of the leading
causes of statistics."
(Fletcher Knebel)
"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data."
(Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1859-1930)
"Statistical thinking will one day be as necessary for efficient citizenship as
the ability to read and write."
(H.G. Wells, 1866-1946)
"If a man stood with one foot in an oven and the other foot in a freezer,
statisticians would say that one the average, he was comfortable."
(Quote Magazine, June 29, 1975)
"We figured the odds as best we could, and then we rolled the dice."
(President Jimmy Carter, June 10,1976)
"Unless statistics lie, he was more brave than me: more blond than you."
(E. E. Cummings)
"Each of us is a statistical impossibility around which hover a million other
lives that were never destined to be born."
(Loren Eiseley)
"Data, data everywhere, but not a thought to think."
(Jesse Shea, computer scientist)
"Oh, many a shaft at random sent
Finds mark the archer little meant!"
(From THE LORD OF THE ISLES, by Sir Walter Scott)
"He uses statistics like a drunken man uses a lamppost... for support rather
than illumination."
(Andrew Lang)
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
(Benjamin Disraeli)
"With proper treatment, a cold will cure in seven days. Left to itself, a cold
will hang on for a week."
(Humorist Henry Felsen)
"You can't get there from here."
(Old New England saying)
"There are probabily a million people in the country who would like to file for
bankruptcy, but they can't afford it."
(Gary Klein, National Consumer Law Center)
"If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
(Former Vice President, Dan Quayle)
"Everyone is ignorant, only on different subjects."
(Will Rogers)
"When the law is on your side, pound the law.
When the facts are on your side, pound the facts.
When neither is on your side, pound the table."
(Source unknown)
"Horse sense is what keeps horses from betting on what people will do."
(Damon Runyon)
"It ain't so much the things we don't know that get us into trouble. It's the
things we know that ain't so."
(Artemus Ward)
"The price tag is easy to read, but an understanding of quality requires
education."
(W. Edwards Deming)
"A horizon is nothing but the limits of our sight."
(Rossiter Raymond)
"On my 14 day diet I've lost 10 days."
(Actually said by an overweight friend of Doc's from Pittsburgh)
"We never cease to stand like curious children before the great mystery into
which we are born."
(Albert Einstein)
"When the telescope ends, the microscope begins.
Who is to say of the two, which has the grander view."
-Victor Hugo (1802-1885), Les Miserables.
"Who can number the sand by the sea, the drops of rain, and the days of
eternity."
(Ecclesiastes 1:2)
"Twinkle, twinkle, little star
How I wonder what you are."
(Popular rhyme)
"There is no smallest among the small and no largest among the large; But
always something still smaller and something still larger."
(Anaxagoras, ca. 450 B.C.)
"Whether you think you can or you can't, you're right."
(Henry Ford)
"A closed mouth gathers no feet."
(Neal Lane, director, NSF)
"If you are not confused by what is going on, then you don't understand it."
(Jane Bryan Quinn)