Overview

This book is a guide to the practical application of statistics in data analysis as typically encountered in the physical sciences. It is primarily addressed at students and professionals who need to draw quantitative conclusions from experimental data. Although most of the examples are taken from particle physics, the material is presented in a sufficiently general way as to be useful to people from most branches of the physical sciences. The first part of the book describes the basic tools of data analysis: concepts of probability and random variables, Monte Carlo techniques, statistical tests, and methods of parameter estimation. The last three chapters are somewhat more specialized than those preceding, covering interval estimation, characteristic functions, and the problem of correcting distributions for the effects of measurement errors (unfolding).

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9780198501565

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Glen Cowan is a particle physicist who seems to have got everything right. Results are stated clearly, without mathematical proof but with enough explanation to satisfy the physicist's need to understand not only how, but also why...Those teaching an advanced undergraduate or graduate course in statistics or physicists will find this a good textbook...Do not be fooled by the fact that it does not have the textbook look - the exercises have been made available separately on a Web site. CERN Courier

Author Information

Dr Glen D. Cowan, CERN, PPE Division, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland, Tel: +41 22 767 6539, Fax: +41 22 767 9425, Email: glen.cowan@cern.ch Glen Cowan received his Ph.D. in physics in 1988 from the University of California, Berkeley, after completing his thesis work on particle production in high energy electron-positron collisions. From there he moved to Europe, and has held positions at the Max Planck Institute in Munich and the University of Siegen, Germany. For most of this time, he has been based at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva. He is a member of the ALEPH experiment at the electron positron collider LEP.

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