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Mathematics for the Study of Frequency Statistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2016

W. F. Sheppard
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The title of my address is “Mathematics for the Study of Frequency Statistics.”

By frequency statistics I mean statistics which give the result of counting. A statement as to the number of teachers receiving annual salaries in excess of a certain amount would come under the head of frequency statistics : a statement as to the total amount paid annually to these teachers would not. The sort of thing that I have mainly in mind is a table giving the numbers of boys of specified heights, the heights being taken to the nearest inch, or the numbers of girls who, having worked a paper with full marks 100, get under 5 marks, 5 and under 10, and so on. I may mention that the word “frequency” is usually applied to the actual number in a specified category; the proportion of this number to the total is called the “relative frequency.”

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Type
Research Article
Information
The Mathematical Gazette , Volume 15 , Issue 210 , December 1930, pp. 232 - 249
Copyright
Copyright © Mathematical Association 1930

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References

page note 231 * E. T. Whittaker and G. Robinson, The Calculus of Observations (1st ed. 1924).

page note 236 * Dates, throughout, are mostly taken from Whittaker and Robinson’s book, quoted in note to §4.

page note 240 * Subtabulation is the process of constructing from a table, in which the constant difference of x is h, a new table in which the constant difference is h/c, c being some integer. Usually c is 10; e.g. h may be −01, and h/c is then .001.

page note 241 * G. J. Lidstone, ‘Notes on Everett’s Interpolation Formula”, Proc. Edinb. Math. Soc.40 (1921-22).

page note 242 * There would also, in the general case, be an absolute term, depending on the term with which the sum starts. In the present case this absolute term is 0.