Resource Library

"Chance. Stupid, dumb, blind chance. Just a part of the strange mechanism of the world, with its fits and coughs and starts and random collisions." is a quote by American author Lauren Oliver (1982 - ). The quote appears in her 2010 novel Before I Fall.

"May the odds be ever in your favor!" is a quote from The Hunger Games novels/movie trilogy by Suzanne Collins (1962 - ). It can be used in discussing the Law of Large Numbers and the position of the casino in betting games.

A poem consisting of two quasi Haikus that can used in discussing the Cramer-Rao lower bound on the variance of a normally distributed statistic. The poem was written by Ming-Lun Ho of Chabot College and was given a third place award in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest.

A joke by Larry Lesser of University of Texas at El Paso that can be used in discussing the uniform probability distribution.

A 2015 video by Amelia Baechtel, an AP Statistics student from Magrudger High School, that can be used in discussing the use of the normal distribution. The video received an honorable mention in the 2015 A-mu-sing contest.

A joke that can be used in distinguishing the difference between the probability mass function (pmf) for discrete variables and the probability density function (pdf) for continuous variables. The idea for the joke came in 2016 from Judah Lesser, an AP Statistics student from El Paso Texas.

A poem for teaching about the Cramer-Rao lower bound on variance of estimators. The poem was written by Ming-Lun Ho, Chabot College. It won third place in the non-song category of the 2015 A-Mu-Sing competition.

A video to teach about the central limit theorem and various issues in one-sample hypothesis testing. The lyrics and video were created by Scott Crawford from the University of Wyoming. The music is from the 1988 song "I'm Gonna Be (500 miles)" by the Scottish band The Proclaimers. The video took second place in the video category of the 2013 CAUSE A-Mu-sing competition. Free for non-profit use in classroom and course website applications.

The theory of probability is the only mathematical tool available to help map the unknown and the uncontrollable. It is fortunate that this tool, while tricky, is extraordinarily powerful and convenient. is a quote by Polish-French-American mathematician and developer of fractal geometry Benoit B. Mandelbrot (1924 - 2010). The quote appears in his 1982 book "The Fractal Geometry of Nature" W.H. Freeman

A cartoon for use in teaching about the Normal distribution. The cartoon was drawn by Australian epidemiologist Matthew Freeman of the Public Health Information Development Unit at the University of Adelaide. It is free for use on course websites or in the classroom provided author acknowledgement is given (e.g. leave copyright statement on the image). Commercial uses should contact the copyright holder. The cartoon was also published under the title "A visual comparison of normal and paranormal distributions" in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health (2006) 60(1):6