ABSTRACT
Statistics are everywhere: in the news, weather summaries, health reports,
commercial marketing and even on the sides of cereal boxes. A clear understanding
of statistics is vital for engineers and this chapter aims to set out some basic
statistical concepts. This is done, not in general terms, but by outlining the analysis
of a particular dataset. This dataset, given in Table 21.1, shows the cricket
attendances of the Boxing Day test matches at the Melbourne Cricket Ground
(MCG) and the observed weather on those same days. After all, what topics for the
discussion of statistics could be more common than the weather, or more popular
than sport? It is worth remembering that just as types of data can be different, so
too can be the techniques used to investigate them and for this reason the following
discussion serves only as an example.
