Statistics

Today in class we went over a quick summary of statistics, accuracy and precision of measurement, inferential statistics, and the empirical rule. Statistics is the collection, evaluation, and interpretation of data. In engineering, statistical analysis of measurement can help with quality of a design or process. We learned how to calculate the mean, median, mode, range, and standard deviation of a group of data. While doing so, we kept in mind that a measurement always involves uncertainty. Significant digits are used to indicate that uncertainty. Accuracy is the degree of closeness of measurements of a quantity to the actual value, whereas precision is the degree to which repeated measurements show the same result. Inferential statistics involves estimating an outcome of an incomplete set of data. Lastly, the empirical rule applies to normal distributions. With this rule, almost all data will fall within three standard deviations of the mean.