The mathematical study of the likelihood and probability of events occurring based on known information and inferred by taking a limited number
of samples. Statistics plays an extremely important role in many aspects of economics
and science, allowing educated guesses to be made with a minimum of expensive or
difficult-to-obtain data.
A joke told about statistics (or, more precisely, about statisticians), runs as follows. Two statisticians are out hunting when one of them sees a duck. The first takes aim
and shoots, but the bullet goes sailing past six inches too high. The second statistician
also takes aim and shoots, but this time the bullet goes sailing past six inches
too low. The two statisticians then give one another high fives and exclaim, "Got
him!" (This joke plays on the fact that the mean of
Approximately 73.8474% of extant statistical jokes are maintained by Ramseyer.
See also Box-and-Whisker Plot ,
Buffon-Laplace Needle Problem ,
Buffon's
Needle Problem ,
Chernoff Face ,
Coin
Tossing ,
de Mere's Problem ,
Dice ,
Gambler's Ruin ,
Index ,
Likelihood ,
Moving Average ,
P-Value ,
Population
Comparison ,
Probability ,
Residual
vs. Predictor Plot ,
Run ,
Sharing
Problem ,
Statistical Distribution ,
Statistical Power ,
Statistical
Test ,
Tail Probability Explore this topic in the MathWorld classroom
Portions of this entry contributed by Deborah
Staunton
Explore with Wolfram|Alpha
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Cite this as:
Staunton, Deborah and Weisstein, Eric W. "Statistics." From MathWorld https://mathworld.wolfram.com/Statistics.html
Subject classifications
and 6 is 0, so "on average,"
the two shots hit the duck.)
