Statistics

This chapter summarizes the basic concepts of statistics with the only purpose of laying the ground for the next chapter (about measurement uncertainty). Basic statistical concepts are defined, such as stochastic variables and the most common probability distribution functions (normal, uniform). The expectation value, the variance, and the standard deviation of a stochastic variable are defined, and the difference between the population variance and the sample variance is stressed. This leads to interval estimations, the Student-t distribution, and the central limit theorem.