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Statistically Speaking: A Dictionary of Quotations PDF

429 Pages·1996·15.486 MB·English
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Statistically Speaking A Dictionary of Quotations About the Compilers Carl C Gaither was bom in 1944 in San Antonio, Texas. He has conducted research work for the Texas Department of Corrections and for the Louisiana Department of Corrections. Additionally he has worked as an Operations Research Analyst for the past ten years. He received his undergraduate degree (Psychology) from the University of Hawaii and has graduate degrees from McNeese State University (Psychology), North East Louisiana University (Criminal Justice), and the University of Southwestem Louisiana (Mathematical Statistics). Alma E Cavazos-Gaither was born in 1955 in San Juan, Texas. She has worked in quality control, material control, and as a bilingual data collector. She received her associate degree (Telecommunications)f rom Central Texas College. Statistically Speaking A Dictionary of Quotations Selected and Arranged by Carl C Gaither and Alma E Cavazos-Gaither Institute of Physics Publishing Bristol and Philadelphia @ 1996 IOP Publishing Ltd All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Multiple copying is permitted in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency under the terms of its agreement with the Committee of ViceChancellors and Principals. IOP Publishing Ltd has attempted to trace the copyright holders of all the quotations reproduced in this publication and apologizes to copyright holders if permission to publish in this form has not been obtained. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN 0 7503 0401 4 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaither, Carl C., 1944- Statistically speaking : a dictionary of quotations / selected and arranged by Carl C. Gaither and Alma E. Cavazos-Gaither. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references (p. - ) and index. ISBN 0-7503-0401-4 (alk. paper) 1. Probabilities--Quotations, maxims, etc. 2. Mathematical statistics--Quotations, maxims, etc. I. Cavazos-Gaither, Alma E., 1955- 11. Title. QA273.63124 1996 519.5- 4c20 96-44176 CIP Published by Institute of Physics Publishing, wholly owned by The Institute of Physics, London Institute of Physics Publishing, Techno House, Redcliffe Way, Bristol BS1 6NX, UK US Editorial Office: Institute of Physics Publishing, Suite 1035, The Public Ledger Building, 150 South Independence Mall West, Philadelphia, PA 19106, USA Typeset in TE3( using the IOP Bookmaker Macros Printed in Great Britain by J W Arrowsmith Ltd, Bristol We respectfully dedicate this book to our parents Mr and Mrs C C Gaither and Ms M Cavazos CONTENTS PREFACE xi ACTUARY 1 ANALYSIS 2 AVERAGE 6 BAYESIAN 18 CAUSE AND EFFECT 19 CERTAINTY 30 CHANCE 34 COMMON SENSE 50 CORRELATION 52 DATA 55 DEFINITIONS 59 DEGREES OF FREEDOM 64 DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS 65 DICE 67 DISTRIBUTIONS 71 ERROR 76 EXPERIMENT 83 FACTS 89 FORECAST 106 GAMBLING 111 GRAPHICS 113 HYPOTHESES 117 IMPOSSIBLE 122 INFINITE 125 Vii Viii STATISTICALLY SPEAKING KNOWLEDGE 126 LAWS 127 LIKELIHOOD 134 MEASUREMENT 136 MODELS 140 OBSERVATIONS 142 ORDER 148 OUTLIERS 150 PERCENTAGES 151 PRAYER 154 PREDICTION 156 PROBABILITY 158 PROBABLE 183 PROBLEMS 187 QUALITY CONTROL 188 QUEUE 190 RANDOMNESS 191 REASON 193 RECURSION 196 REGRESSION 197 RESEARCH 199 RESIDUALS 200 SAMPLE 201 SCIENCE 204 STATISTICAL 206 STATISTICIAN 221 STATISTICS 234 SURVEYS AND QUESTIONNAIRES 266 SYMMETRY 268 TABLES 269 TEACHING 271 TESTING 273 THEORY 275 TRUTH 284 CONTENTS ix VARIABILITY 285 BIBLIOGRAPHY 289 PERMISSIONS 320 SUBJECT BY AUTHOR INDEX 331 AUTHOR BY SUBJECT INDEX 398 PREFACE Statistically Speaking is a book of quotations. It has, for the first time, brought together in one easily accessible form the best expressed thoughts that are especially illuminating and pertinent to the disciplines of probability and statistics. Some of the quotations are profound, others are wise, some are witty, but none are frivolous. Quotations from the most famous men and women lie in good company with those from unknown wits. You may not find all the quoted ’jewels’ that exist, but we are certain that you will find a great number of them here. We believe that Benjamin Franklin was correct when he said that “Nothing gives an author so much pleasure as to find his work respectfully quoted...”. Statistically Speaking is also an aid for the individual who loves to quote - and to quote correctly. “Always verify your quotations” was advice given to Dean John William Bourgen, then fellow of Oriel College, by Dr Martin Joseph Routh. That advice was given over 150 years ago and is still true today. Frequently, books on quotations will have subtle changes to the quotation, changes to punctuation, slight changes to the wording, even misleading information in the attribution, so that the compiler will know if someone used a quotation from ‘their’ book. We attempted to verify each and every one of the quotations in this book to ensure that they are correct. The attributions give the fullest possible information that we could find to help you pinpoint the quotation in its appropriate context or discover more quotations in the original source. Judicial opinions and speeches include, when possible, the date of the opinion or speech. We assure the reader that not one of the quotations in this book was created by us. In summary, Statistically Speaking is a book that has many uses. You Can: Identify the author of a quotation. 0 Identify the source of the quotation. 0 Check the precise wording of a quotation. 0 Discover what an individual has said on a subject. 0 Find sayings by other individuals on the same subject. 0 xi Xii STATISTKAL LY SPEAKING How to Use This Book 1. A quotation for a given subject may be found by looking for that subject in the alphabetical arrangement of the book itself. To illustrate, if a quotation on likelihood is wanted, you will find nine quotations listed under the heading likelihood. The arrangement of quotations in this book under each subject heading constitutes a collective composition that incorporates the sayings of a range of people. 2. To find all the quotations pertaining to a subject and the individuals quoted use the SUBJECT BY AUTHOR INDEX. This index will help guide you to the specific statement that is sought. A brief extract of each quotation is included in this index. 3. If you recall the name appearing in the attribution or if you wish to read all of an individual author’s contributions that are included in this book then you will want to use the AUTHOR BY SUBJECT INDEX. Here the authors are listed alphabetically along with their quotations. The birth and death dates are provided for the authors whenever we could determine them. When we could not find the information we included a ( - ). Thanks It is never superfluous to say thanks where thanks are due. First, I thank my stepdaughter Maritza Marie Cavazos for her assistance in tracking down incomplete citations, looking for books in the libraries, and helping to sort the piles of correspondence generated in obtaining permissions. Next, we thank the following libraries for allowing us to use their resources: the main library and the science library of The University of Richmond; the main library of the Virginia Commonwealth University; the medical library of the Virginia Commonwealth Medical School; the main library and the science library of Baylor University; the main library of the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor; the main library of the Central Texas College; the main library, the physics-math-astronomy library, and the human resource library of the University of Texas at Austin. Additionally, we would like to thank each of the publishers who provided permission to use the quotations. We made a very serious attempt to contact the publishers for permission to use the quotations. Letters were written to each publisher or agent for which we could find an address. A follow-up letter was sent to those who did not respond to our first letter. If no response was received we then assumed a calculated risk and incorporated the quotation. In no way did we use a quotation without attempting to obtain prior approval. Carl Gaither Alma Cavazos-Gaither ACTUARY Analytical and graphical treatment of statistics is employed by the economist, the philanthropist, the business expert, the actuary, and'even the physician, with the most surprising valuable results . . . Karpansky, L. High School Education Chapter 6 (p. 134) Someone once asked an accountant, a mathematician, an engineer, a statistician and an actuary how much 2 plus 2 was. The accountant said "4". The mathematician said "It all depends on your number base." The engineer took out his slide-rule and said "approximately 3.99". The statistician consulted his tables and said, "I am 95% confident that it lies between 3.95 and 4.05." The actuary said "What do you want it to add up to?" Unknown Actuaries are funny people. Even when they are wrong, they are right. I told an actuary to go to the back of the queue. He immediately came back and said that he couldn't-there was already someone there. Unknown An insurance company is like an automobile going down the road at high speed. The managing director has his hands on the wheel, the marketing director has his foot on the accelerator. The finance director is heaving with all his might on the hand-brake and the actuary is in the back screaming directions from a map he has just made by looking out of the rear window. Unknown 1

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