Statistics and Probability Probability can provide clues even to whether a situation will likely turn dangerous For instance when the very first astronauts were sent into space nobody had ever done that before One astronaut later reported that he wondered if he might get fried by light energy if he strayed outside the spaceship during a space walk So scientists had to figure out things like what to expect from light rays and even meteorites that might shoot by out of nowhere or many other random dangers that might occur They were forced to have math ematicians figure out the probabilities that random problems might occur so they might be avoided And it worked Our space pro gram was successful More important space accidents were reduced 8
STATISTICAL DATA nyone who watches television browses the Internet or reads books newspapers and magazines cannot help but be aware of statistics The term statistics is used in two dif ferent ways When used in the plural it refers to numerical data For example one would say Statistics show highway accidents to be caused by When used in the singular it means statistical methods as in Statistics is the body of principles and methods that has been developed for collecting analyzing presenting and interpreting large masses of numerical data Without statistical methods there would be no way to put data together to see what they mean Statistics appear in the claims of adver tisers in predictions of election results and
Statistics and Probability shorte Tarable sales Sikken by Industry 3rd Quarter 2011 features SENSEN Utilities 54 King and OEitection Intertainment Pie charts like the one this businessman is using are one common way to display statistics AP Images 10
STATISTICAL DATA 580 065 struction 213 592 294 Manufacturing 319 988 067 opinion polls in cost of living indexes and in reports of business trends and cycles Every science depends to some extent upon the gathering of data and the inter preting of the data by statistical methods On the basis of statistics I important decisions are made in the fields of government industry and education Even the average person bases many personal deci sions on information that has been supplied by statisticians The results of statistical inves tigations may sometimes be stated in a single sentence as in weather forecasting Often however they are presented in the form of numer ical tables or are shown pictorially in the form of graphs or charts HOW STATISTICAL DATA ARE COLLECTED Statistical data are usually collected in one of the following ways W by consulting existing source material such as 11
