Physics Homework Help

This exercise requires the use of a descriptive statistics calculator.  You can find this tool in some versions of Excel (as part of the Analysis ToolPak) or you can use one of the many free online descriptive calculators such as the Descriptive Statistics Calculator (Links to an external site.) by Calculator Soup.  

To begin, come up with 20 different data points (that will form a set of data) and enter them into the first column of an Excel spreadsheet.  The data points can be any numbers you want as long as there are 20 of them. 

You will then use the descriptive statistics option in your descriptive statistics program or calculator.  This is explained in Chapter 1 of your course text.  You should get an output similar to the image in Figure 1.1. 

This output must contain the following values: mean, standard error, median, mode, standard deviation, sample variance, kurtosis, skewness, range, minimum, maximum, sum, and count.  Address the following points in your initial post:

• Begin your discussion by reporting your results for each of the values listed above. 
• Based on this output, which single value best describes this set of data and why? 
• If you could pick three of these values instead of only one, which three would you choose and why? 

It is important to note that the answers to these questions may be different for each of you since you are each using unique sets of data.