Resource Library

I remember my friend Johnny von Neumann used to say, with four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk. includes the quote attributed to Hungarian-American mathematician John von Neumann (1903 - 1957). The full quote was relayed by Enrico Fermi in 1953 when he was asked about the value of a result that used four free parameters in fitting experimental results. (see "A meeting with Enrico Fermi" "Nature" 427: p. 297.)

Normal is the average of deviance is a quote by American writer and political activist Rita Mae Brown (1944 - ). The quote may be found on page 126 of her 1993 novel "Venus Envy", spoken by the main character Mary Frazier Armstrong.

The best way to predict the future is to invent it. This is a quote by American computer scientist Alan C. Kay (1940 - ). The quote was said at a 1971 meeting of Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center.

September 22, 2009 Activity Webinar presented by Diane Evans, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. This webinar is based on an activity found at www.lhs.logan.k12.ut.us/~jsmart/tank.htm and other on-line resources (see references). During World War II, the British and U.S. statisticians used estimation methods to deduce the productivity of Germany's armament factories using serial numbers found on captured equipment, such as tanks. The tanks were numbered in a manner similar to 1, 2, 3, ..., N, and the goal of the allies was to estimate the population maximum N from their collected sample of serial numbers. The purpose of this activity is to introduce students to the concept of an unbiased estimator of a population parameter. Students develop several estimators for the parameter N and compare them by running simulations in Minitab. Extra materials available for download free of charge.

August 25, 2009 Activity webinar presented by Michelle Everson, University of Minnesota and hosted by Leigh Slauson, Capital University. In a classroom setting, students can engage in hands-on activities in order to better understand certain concepts and ideas. Replicating hands-on activities in an online environment, however, can be a challenge for instructors. The purpose of this webinar is to present an applet that was created to replicate a "Post-it Note" activity commonly used in classroom sections of an undergraduate introductory statistics course at University of Minnesota. The Post-it Note activity is meant to help students develop a more conceptual understanding of the mean and the median by moving a set of Post-it Notes along a number line. During the webinar, participants have an opportunity to see and experience just how online students are able to interact with an applet named the "Sticky Centers" applet, and the webinar presents the kinds of materials and assignments that have been created to use in conjunction with this applet. The webinar ends with a preview of a newer applet that is being developed in order to replicate the famous "Gummy Bears in Space" activity (presented in Schaeffer, Gnanadesikan, Watkins & Witmer, 1996). A supplemental student handout is available for download free of charge.

A cartoon to teach the idea that averages are less variable than individual values. The cartoon is free for use on course websites or in the classroom. Commercial uses must contact the copyright holder - British cartoonist John Landers (cartoons@landers.co.uk) who drew this cartoon based on an idea from Dennis Pearl.

A movie frame given the statistical caption "Kolmogorov-Smirnov test: many think its still the best, especially for a non-parametric mood." This is part of a collection of statistical captions to accompany art work written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. The still shot came from the 1959 movie "Our Man in Havana" starring Alec Guinness and Ernie Kovacs. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A song parody by Steve Sodergren (a.k.a. Al G Bra: see www.reverbnation.com/algbra) that may be sung to the tune of "With or Without You" by U2. Can be used to stimulate conversation about confidence intervals and the typical use of 95% confidence in the media when it is not otherwise reported (i.e. being within plus or minus two standard deviations for intervals based on a normal sampling distribution). This song appears on Al G Bra's "Hotel Califormula" CD.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Full Cry" by Heywood Hardy (1892) with the statistical caption "Random noise." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.

A sketch by Anastasia Mandel reinterpreting "Mont Sainte-Victoire" by Paul Cezanne (1898) with the statistical caption "A skewed distribution, but the same mountain (always look at things from different angles)." This is part of a collection of sketches by Anastasia Mandel and their accompanying statistical captions written by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel that took first place in the cartoon & art category of the 2009 A-Mu-sing contest sponsored by CAUSE. The collection and their accompanying statistical captions discussed in the paper "How art helps to understand statistics" (Model Assisted Statistics and Applications, 2009) by Stan Lipovetsky and Igor Mandel in volume 4 pages 313-324. Free to use in classrooms and on course websites.