Tag Archives: Math

Sep 12 2011

Math might be scary but it isn’t new

In the good ol’ days, after the invention of numbers, we did everything by hand – by paper, pen, and pencil. Math was hard but people got it. Over the years, we switched to fancy calculators and amazingly fast computers, but the math stayed essentially the same. Don’t be scared of it. Embrace it, work at it, you can learn it.

My dad, awesome guy that he is, still uses his slide rule for everything.
slide rule pundit kitchen

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May 8 2011

Justin Bieber is a statistician

A six-part fugue from The Musical Offering, in...

Image via Wikipedia

If you’ve had limited experience with reading and playing music, maybe it’s been a few decades since you were forced to learn the recorder or the violin or the piano, you may not be familiar with why so many people say there is a link between being good at both.

If you’re unsure, put yourself in your favourite way too loud jazz club, hip hop club, square dance hall, or whatever music arena tickles your fancy, and sit down. Yes, ignore everyone else who is having a good time “dancing” and sit down. Now watch your legs. At least one of them is going to start bouncing up and down and you won’t be able to stop it. You may not realize it, but you’re counting. 1, 2, or 1, 2, 3, or 1, 2, 3, 4. You’re counting out sections or bars of music.

The foundation of music is simple counting and fractions. What, math? Fractions? Yessiree bob! Depending on the complexity of the music, on a scale from Britney to Bieber to Bach, each of those sections of bars can be broken up into smaller pieces. Perhaps cut into equal halves (oooh half notes), equal thirds (ooooh triplets), equal quarters (quarter notes or one leg bob), equal eights (seriously, I need to explain this one too?), or some combination of fractions that adds back up to one. Just not equal sevenths because that’s crazy.

You may not realize it but every time you keep the beat with your toe tapping or sing out of tune to the radio, you’re doing basic math. So if you are a math phobic and you don’t want your kids to become math phobics, fight the genes and make sure your kids get some music lessons. It’s a good way to sneak in some math tutoring and it can’t hurt. You might inspire a future music genius or statistician.

Mar 15 2011

Really Simple Statistics: Mean, Median, Mode #MRX

Welcome to Really Simple Statistics (RSS). There are lots of places online where you can ponder over the minute details of complicated equations but very few places that make statistics understandable to everyone. I won’t explain exceptions to the rule or special cases here. Let’s just get comfortable with the fundamentals

What is a mean?

Well, it’s certainly not this angry little guy!

idahoeditor from morguefile
.
There are a few kinds of means that smartie pants like to mention, but most people really are referring to the “average.” Averages are often the easiest way to describe a group using one single number.

For example, the average of
1 1 5 6 7
is
(1+1+5+6+7)÷5=4

What is a median?

The median is the middle number in an ordered list. In other words, half of the numbers are larger and half of the numbers are smaller.

The mean and median often work well together to describe data. If you think about incomes, the average US household income might actually be $500 000 because there is a small group of people who make ridiculously huge salaries (think professional athletes, music and film celebrities, executives of private corporations). But, that average number doesn’t really reflect the salaries that the ‘average’ family earns. So, then we might look at the median US household income which could be $50 000 dollars. Half of people make more than that, and half of people make less than that. Now THAT number makes more sense.

For example, with the same set of numbers…
1 1 5 6 7 … The median is 5
1 6 1 7 5 … The median is still 5
5 1 7 6 1 … And the median is still 5

What is the mode?

Again, people follow me here! I’m not talking about ice cream as in pie ‘a la mode’, though I could really go for some right now!

The mode is the most common number in a list. The mode is useful if you want to say things like “Most people each three meals a day” or “Most people use one bar of soap every week.” Using the same list as above, the mode in this list…
1 1 5 6 7 …. is 1.

Really Simple Statistics!

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Mar 11 2011

It’s now 3:14pm says this stupid clock for stats geeks. #MRX

This blog was published at exactly 3:14 pm. I think. If I had a clock like this, I might not be able to tell. But I still NEED a clock like this.

Why 3:14 you ask? Because that’s pi time. And we all need an afternoon snack.

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ordinal cookies
Mar 9 2011

Really Simple Statistics: Nominal Ordinal Interval and Ratio Numbers #MRX

Welcome to Really Simple Statistics (RSS). There are lots of places online where you can ponder over the minute details of complicated equations but very few places that make statistics understandable to everyone. I won’t explain exceptions to the rule or special cases here. Let’s just get comfortable with the fundamentals.

What? There are different kinds of Numbers?

In statistics, the type of number you use determines the type of statistic you can use. Learn these and you’ll have an easier time deciding what statistic makes more sense to use. There are four basic types of numbers that we consider in statistics.

What are Nominal Numbers?

Nominal numbers make the least sense because they aren’t really numbers. Nominal numbers are simply numbers that are different. 1 is not 2. 3 is not 9. It really makes more sense to think of things like apples and oranges, or cookies with green sprinkles vs cookies with red sprinkles. There is no reason to assign apples to the number 1 or 3 nor does it make any sense to assign oranges to the number 2 or 9. We just assign numbers to things because it makes doing statistics and creating charts easier. It’s like a check all that apply question on a survey.

cooee from morguefile; mensatic from morguefile

What are Ordinal Numbers?

With ordinal numbers, we have a little bit more information about the numbers. When we use ordinal numbers, we know that one of the numbers is bigger than another number. We know that 2 is bigger than 1, and 7 is bigger than 3. And it works the other way too. 1 is smaller than 2 and 3 is smaller than 7. We know which number is bigger, we just don’t know by how much bigger. One cookie is simply bigger than the other cookie. And I’ll have the bigger one. Like you could even yank it out of my hand. These types of numbers show up when we use Likert scale questions on a survey.


mconnors from morguefile

What are Interval Numbers?

Now let’s add in another piece of information. Interval numbers tell us everything we learned above, AND they tell about the spacing between the numbers. For instance, the amount of space between 1 and 2 is the same as the amount of space between 6 and 7. Or, the difference between 1 and 2 cookies is the same as the difference between 2 and 3 cookies. The difference in both cases is exactly one cookie. My cookie.

What are Ratio Numbers?

And lastly is where we thank Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Khwarizmi. Ratio numbers incorporate the number zero. Now we know which number is bigger, and we know how much bigger, and we also know how to create none of it. This would be a survey question where you ask people to make sure their numbers add up to 100%. But I don’t dare illustrate what zero cookies looks like. The shock of it might kill me.

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