). Such
practices are confusing
to other physicists who in the course of their work must
combine, compare, interpret, or manipulate experimental
results. By 1980 most of these misleading practices had
been discontinued.
An equivalent statement is that in the inverse probability
approach (also called Baysean approach) one is implicitly
assuming that the prior probabilities are equal.
H. Cramer, Mathematical Methods of Statistics,
Princeton University Press, 1946.
M. Annis, W. Cheston, and H. Primakoff, Rev. Mod. Phys.
25, 818 (1953).
A. G. Frodesen, O. Skjeggestad, and H. Tofte,
Probability
and Statistics in Particle Physics. (Columbia University
Press, 1979) ISBN 82-00-01906-3. The title is misleading,
this is an excellent book for physicists in all fields
who wish to pursue the subject more deeply than is done
in these notes.
J. Orear, "Least Squares When Both Variables have
Uncertainties", Amer. Jour. Phys., Oct. 1982.
Some statistics books written specifically for physicists
are:
H. D. Young, "Statistical Treatment of Experimental Data,"
(McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York, 1962).
P. R. Bevington, "Data Reduction and Error Analysis for
the Physical Sciences," (McGraw-Hill Book Co., New York
1969).
W. T. Eadie, D. Drijard, F. E. James, M. Roos, and
B. Sadoulet, "Statistical Methods in Experimental
Physics," (North-Holland Publishing Co., Amsterdam-London,
1971).
S. Brandt, "Statistical and Computational Methods in
Data Analysis," second edition (Elsevier North-Holland
Inc., New York, 1976.)
S. L. Meyer, "Data Analysis for Scientists and Engineers"
(John Wiley and Sons, New York, 1975).
Reprinted from Rev. Mod. Phys. 52, No. 2, Part 11, April
1980 (page 536).