30203 Introduction to Statistics and Probability for Science Students 1
Credits: 3 intermediate credits in Mathematics
Prerequisites: none
Authors: Shmuel Zamir, Ruth Beyth-Marom
The course acquaints students with basic methods of data representation and with rudimentary concepts and tools of probability theory, two of the basic components of statistics. It provides a foundation for Statistical Inference (30204). The approach is mathematical; however, high-school level Mathematics is sufficient as background.2
Topics: Introduction to statistics historical development; the work of the statistician; Fundamentals of descriptive statistics grouping data in tables and graphs; measures of central tendency (mean, mode, midrange, median); measures of variation (percentage error, range and maximum deviation, interquartile range, mean absolute deviation and mean squared deviation, variance and standard deviation); percentile and standard score; Pearson's correlation coefficient; Foundations of probability theory basic set theory; probability space and probability function; uniform probability space and combinatorics; conditional probability; independent events; the complete probability formula; Bayes formula; Discrete random variables probability function and cumulative probability function; special distributions uniform, binomial, geometric, Poisson; expectation and variance; Two dimensional random variables and continuous random variables joint probability and marginal probability; dependent/independent random variables; uncorrelated random variables; probability density functions and cumulative probability functions of continuous random variables; uniform distribution and normal distribution.
1There is some overlap in the content of this and other courses. For details, see Overlapping Courses.
2Students who studied high school Mathematics at the low, 3-point matriculation level, and those who studied Mathematics at the higher 4 or 5-point level, but have not reviewed the material for a long time or whose matriculation achievements were low, are advised to take the Mathematics Refresher Workshop for Social Science Students (95001) before taking this course.