ABSTRACT
A frequent problem with experimental data deals with “outliers.” Most good experimentalists have some idea of the expected outcome of their experiments. Unexpected outcomes are looked upon with suspicion. When a sequence of experiments have been conducted, the experimentalist is often concerned that one or more of the results may be abherrant. Thus, the search of the data for “outliers,” numbers that are not typical and which will tend to skew the conclusions away from the true central tendency. This chapter deals with data that may or may not have such outliers lying on one side of the true central tendency. There are four sets of data in Tables 2.1, 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4. Table 2.1 is symmetric about its mean. Tables 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 have increasing degrees of assymmetry. All four tables have the same mean (50) and the same variance (100). Only the skewness differs.
