The W's

• January 31st 2008, 05:35 PM
Morgan82
The W's
I just started stats, and i missed the first few days. Im kind of confused on what the who and what are. Can someome maybe explain to me..in simple terms?
Also, can someone explain what we use log for?
Id really appreciate it!
• January 31st 2008, 11:39 PM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgan82
I just started stats, and i missed the first few days. Im kind of confused on what the who and what are. Can someome maybe explain to me..in simple terms?
Also, can someone explain what we use log for?
Id really appreciate it!

If you're wondering why there's been no replies it's because:

1. Your first question makes absolutely no sense.

2. Your second question is too broad to give a simple and short answer to (I assume you want to know what log is used for in statistics ....?) Especially when your mathematical background is a complete unknown.

Suffice to say, when you get to the part of your course where log gets used, then you'll know the answer.
• February 1st 2008, 01:11 AM
CaptainBlack
Quote:

Originally Posted by Morgan82
I just started stats, and i missed the first few days. Im kind of confused on what the who and what are. Can someome maybe explain to me..in simple terms?

Does your course have a recomended/set text? If so read the introduction
and or the first chapter overview material.

If not Browse through the early seactions of this

Quote:

Also, can someone explain what we use log for?
Id really appreciate it!
If you have not met logarithms before then they are not a part of the
prerequisites of your course and they will be covered when you need them.

If it pre-calculus is a pre-requisite then you should already have covered
what you need to know.

RonL
• February 1st 2008, 07:16 AM
topsquark
Quote:

Originally Posted by mr fantastic
If you're wondering why there's been no replies it's because:

1. Your first question makes absolutely no sense.

2. Your second question is too broad to give a simple and short answer to (I assume you want to know what log is used for in statistics ....?) Especially when your mathematical background is a complete unknown.

Suffice to say, when you get to the part of your course where log gets used, then you'll know the answer.

Actually I think it does make sense and isn't nearly as broad a field as you took it to be. I'm not competent to answer the question, but if memory serves W is something called the "maximum likelihood" function, and we take the logarithm of that for some reason which my memory fails me on. I think that is what the op assumed we knew. (I ran into this in a graduate lab ages ago when we were talking about the derivation of $\chi ^2$ formulas. I never really understood the derivations, but I could use my notes to derive the correct formulas anyway.)

-Dan
• February 1st 2008, 01:08 PM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by topsquark
Actually I think it does make sense and isn't nearly as broad a field as you took it to be. I'm not competent to answer the question, but if memory serves W is something called the "maximum likelihood" function, and we take the logarithm of that for some reason which my memory fails me on. I think that is what the op assumed we knew. (I ran into this in a graduate lab ages ago when we were talking about the derivation of $\chi ^2$ formulas. I never really understood the derivations, but I could use my notes to derive the correct formulas anyway.)

-Dan

Yes, that had crossed my mind (the maximum likelihood stuff etc., NOT your graduate lab days (Rofl) ) but then I thought - first few days of the course, I don't think so ...... No idea of stats or maths background, could be opening a can of worms here, a thread that would die the death of a thousand cuts. Not to mention create huge angst and worry in the mind of the member.

The thing is that log could crop in many many different ways - at both an advanced level and an elementary level. It might even have been a review of pre-calc .......
• February 1st 2008, 05:22 PM
topsquark
Quote:

Originally Posted by mr fantastic
...but then I thought - first few days of the course, I don't think so ......

Actually we covered this in the first week of my lab course. :) And finished our coverage of it in something like two classes before we were told to write a program to do an exponential $\chi ^2$ fit. (Not that hard to do really, but when you've just had a crash course...)

-Dan
• March 11th 2008, 06:38 PM
mr fantastic
Quote:

Originally Posted by topsquark
Actually I think it does make sense and isn't nearly as broad a field as you took it to be. I'm not competent to answer the question, but if memory serves W is something called the "maximum likelihood" function, and we take the logarithm of that for some reason which my memory fails me on. I think that is what the op assumed we knew. (I ran into this in a graduate lab ages ago when we were talking about the derivation of $\chi ^2$ formulas. I never really understood the derivations, but I could use my notes to derive the correct formulas anyway.)

-Dan