Assignment 1

Discussion

Read the New York Times article ``When is a coincidence too bad to be true?" by Gina Kolata and answer the following questions.

• (1) Would you hesitate to fly on USAir? Would you hesitate to fly on a Boeing 737? Why?
• (2) The Math Department softball team makes a lot of errors. Or rather, the players make errors. Say that over the course of the game the team makes 20 errors, and that each time an error is made, it is equally likely to be made by each of the 10 players. How likely do you think it is that at some point in the game, a single player will be responsible for the last three errors made, or for four out of the last seven? How could you get a good idea of what these unknown probabilities are?
• (3) The following statement appeared in the July 20 issue of ``Flight International".

  More people died in airline accidents during the first half of 1994 than in the same period of any other year in the last decade except for the record year of 1985, according to the Flight International Airline Safety Review published this week.

  What do you make of that?

Homework assignments for Tuesday September 28

• Read Chapters 13 of FPPA. (This does not depend on previous chapters.) Do the following review exercises for Chapter 13: 1, 3, 7, 8, 9

Journal Assignment for Tuesday September 28

Read the article `How numbers can trick you'. See how many examples of these six dealy sins of statistical misrepresentation you can provide.