Re:Statistical Computing for Scientists and Engineers
by closed on Sunday December 31, 2017 @09:53AM
(#16040752)
I have seen people in physics and other physical sciences work with statistics. My sense is that the less someone has to worry about "measurement error", the less intuitive statics seems to them.
For example, in some areas of research, once you have the right instrument take measurements, you can just plot the results, and your measurements (or some transformation of them) will show up as a linear function of whatever you manipulated.
But really, I'm not totally sure what you mean, since in any situation where there's uncertainty, it makes sense to me that you'd want to try to capture that uncertainty in your analysis, and that's statistics. Make those analyses more complex (e.g. taking measurements from a field with obvious spatial dependence between measures), and the models become more complex too.
Re:Statistical Computing for Scientists and Engineers
by geomark on Sunday December 31, 2017 @10:00AM
(#16040786)
That's really the issue, isn't it? That nearly all data is at least somewhat noisy. Making inferences from it is just a big blur without a systematic way to handle it.
For example, in some areas of research, once you have the right instrument take measurements, you can just plot the results, and your measurements (or some transformation of them) will show up as a linear function of whatever you manipulated.
But really, I'm not totally sure what you mean, since in any situation where there's uncertainty, it makes sense to me that you'd want to try to capture that uncertainty in your analysis, and that's statistics. Make those analyses more complex (e.g. taking measurements from a field with obvious spatial dependence between measures), and the models become more complex too.