In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dennis Roberts) wrote:
>Subject: Re: [edstat] variance: a simple but confusing (to me) question >From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dennis Roberts) >Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] >Organization: None >Date: 22 Mar 2004 07:53:33 -0800 >Newsgroups: sci.stat.edu > >At 10:02 AM 3/22/2004, you wrote: >>Suppose A's income is 100 in the year 1, and his income is expected >>to be anywhere between 110 and 120 in the year 2. What would be a >>reasonable estimate of A's (expected) income variance from year 1 to >>year 2? (Hey, not a homework question.) > >Don't you mean ... income variance OF year 1 AND year 2? not BETWEEN year 1 >and year 2 ... >I am assuming that between year 1 and year 2 ... is the dividing point of >which there is no income ... > To an accountant a "variance" is a "difference" between a budget and an actual. The first thing in this problem is to find out which of the many dictionary meanings of variance the origianl poster had in mind. From the question it is not obvious that the common statistical definition of second central moment was the intended one. Since it was not a homework problem (according to the claim) it is less likely to be using the technical statistical definitions. The question is confusing to others because they do not know what the words are intended to mean and so do not know what the question was. > > > >. >. >================================================================= >Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the >problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: >. http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . >================================================================= . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
