In article <9fufeu$67nuj$[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
Neville X. Elliven <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>R. Jones wrote:
>>Can anyone refer me to a good book on the foundations of statistics?
>>I want to know of the limitations, assumptions, and philosophy
>>behind statistics.
>"Probability, Statistics, and Truth" by Richard von Mises is available
>in paperback [ISBN 0-486-24214-5] and might be just what you seek.
This is really a book on the foundations of probability.
In my opinion, neither it, nor any other book which
attempts to limit the idea of probability to idealized
relative frequency, is of much value.
>>A discussion of how the quantum world may have
>>different laws of statistics might be a plus.
>The statistical portion of statistical mechanics is fairly simple, and
>no different conceptually from other statistics.
In fact, everything mentioned here, including statistical
mechanics and quantum statistics, is probability.
The difference between probability and statistics is that,
in statistics, much is assumed unknown about the state of
nature, and the problem is to decide which action. What
you need to look at is the problem of decision making under
uncertainty about the state of nature, including about the
probability distribution.
--
This address is for information only. I do not claim that these views
are those of the Statistics Department or of Purdue University.
Herman Rubin, Dept. of Statistics, Purdue Univ., West Lafayette IN47907-1399
[EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone: (765)494-6054 FAX: (765)494-0558
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