Contents INTRODUCTION CHAPTER ONE STATISTICAL DATA CHAPTER TWO STATISTICS AND MEASUREMENTS 23 CHAPTER THREE STATISTICS AND VARIABILITY 38 CHAPTER FOUR PROBABILITY 52 62 CONCLUSION GlossARY FOR MORE INFORMATION FOR FURTHER READING INDEX 63 65 68 70
Intro duction T tatistics and probability are two of the most useful branches of math Statistics is the gathering analysis interpretation and presentation of numerical data Probability is the mathematical study of the chances events have of occurring Both probability and statis tics have many real world applications While math discoveries are fascinating in them selves when they lead to wonderful inventions that we humans actually use then we see why people study these ideas in the first place For example a major league baseball team sud denly began winning games as they never had before when they hired a statistician to find out what really was important in a game They had found that following the same old ideas was resulting in disaster But perhaps even more inspiring was a recent development in the world of youth bas ketball that provides a glimpse into the power of statistics A dad recently began to coach his daughter s basketball team and strangely no one on his team could dribble or shoot the ball very well Neither could he for that matter Yet they won a state championship How The dad studied basketball statistics and discov ered a high correlation between team defense and team success So he focused purely on
INTRODUCTION Professional baseball is a sport in which statistics plays a particularly big role Professional statisticians work with teams while fans can often recite their favorite players stats Boston Globe Getty Images defense His girls scored baskets only when they stole the ball and got an easy layup The opponents found themselves confused frus trated and losing to this unusual approach The world of probability also has fascinat ing uses beyond what one might imagine Sometimes we want to do something but have no clue about whether it s even
