Stats Chapter 6
Tonight, I begin studying continuous random variables and their probability distribution.
Statistics, so far, has proven to be interesting. I definitely see its value. The only thing I wish I had more of was its history. For instance: Who, exactly, was Mssr Poisson? How did he come up with the distribution formula that bears his name? What drove him to spend hours and hours figuring this stuff out? Why at that point in history? How did it move the field forward? Did people make fun of him when he was kid because his last name meant "fish"? (Okay, this last question is somewhat gratuitous.)
I can deal with being given a formula and being instructed to use it without question. But it helps me to know how to use the formula when I am given information on how it came to be. Maybe I just remember "context" more easily than I do a bunch of Greek and English letters piled on top of each other.
Oh well. Better start studying.
Statistics, so far, has proven to be interesting. I definitely see its value. The only thing I wish I had more of was its history. For instance: Who, exactly, was Mssr Poisson? How did he come up with the distribution formula that bears his name? What drove him to spend hours and hours figuring this stuff out? Why at that point in history? How did it move the field forward? Did people make fun of him when he was kid because his last name meant "fish"? (Okay, this last question is somewhat gratuitous.)
I can deal with being given a formula and being instructed to use it without question. But it helps me to know how to use the formula when I am given information on how it came to be. Maybe I just remember "context" more easily than I do a bunch of Greek and English letters piled on top of each other.
Oh well. Better start studying.
posted by Jerry Blank at 8:04 PM
1 Comments:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=lang_en&safe=off&c2coff=1&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=Simeon+Poisson&btnG=Search
Btw, I took the finance course at UCB Extension too; dry initially, but loved it towards the end, especially the project which was on comparing companies based on finanical ratios.
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