Probability

  • by Peter Sprangers

    Come with me and we shall go
    a place that only n has known

    a kingdom distant and sublime
    whose ruler is the greatest prime

    a land where infinite sums can rest
    and undergrads shall take no test

    a place where every child you see
    writes poems about the C.L.T.

    where cdf's converge to one
    and every day is filled with sun.

    where we can jump time's famous hurdle
    and watch Achilles beat the turtle

    and every stat plucked from a tree
    is, without proof, U.M.V.U.E.

    where joy o'erflows the cornucopia
    in this, the land of Asymptopia.

  • by W.J. Youden (1900 - 1971)

     

    THE
    NORMAL
    LAW OF ERROR
    STANDS OUT IN THE
    EXPERIENCE OF MANKIND
    AS ONE OF THE BROADEST
    GENERALIZATIONS OF NATURAL
    PHILOSOPHY ... IT SERVES AS THE
    GUIDING INSTRUMENT IN RESEARCHES
    IN THE PHYSICAL AND SOCIAL SCIENCES AND
    IN MEDICINE, AGRICULTURE, AND ENGINEERING.
    IT IS AN INDISPENSABLE TOOL FOR THE ANALYSIS AND THE
    INTERPRETATION OF THE BASIC DATA OBTAINED BY OBSERVATION AND EXPERIMENT

     

  • A statistics major was completely hung over the day of his final exam. It was a true/false test, so he decided to flip a coin for the answers. The statistics professor watched the student the entire two hours as he was flipping the coin ... writing the answer ... flipping the coin ... writing the answer. At the end of the two hours, everyone else had finished the exam and left the room except for that lone student. The professor walked over and said, "Listen, I see that you did not study for this statistics test, you didn't even look at the exam questions. If you are just flipping a coin for your answers, what in the world is taking you so long?"
    Still flipping the coin, the student replied "Shhh! I am checking my answers!"

  • How many statisticians does it take to change a lightbulb?

    1.96, normally.

    Jackie Miller

  • After sitting through the twenty-third example about playing cards in his probability class, the student raised his hand to complain: "Professor, all this talk makes me feel like I'm turning into a deck of cards."
    The professor turned to the student and replied, "Be patient and I'll deal with you later."

  • A visitor to physicist Niels Bohr's country cottage, noticing a horseshoe hanging on the wall, teased the eminent scientist about this ancient superstition. "Can it be true that you, of all people, believe it will bring you luck?"
    "Of course not," replied Bohr, "but I understand it brings you luck whether you believe it or not."

  • The larger the sample size (n) the more confident you can be that your sample mean is a good representation of the population mean. In other words, the "n" justifies the means.

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