Statistical Methods in Astronomy--Lecture 1: Introduction

1. Motivation
   • "Road toll lowest in recorded history" -SMH, 1998 Jan 2.
   • --is this true?
   • --is this significant?
2. Summary
   • Detection
   • Correlation / hypothesis testing
   • Parameter estimation
   • Comparision
3. Terminology
   • Significance
   • Monte-Carlo
   • Chi-square
   • Maximum likelihood (ML)
   • Chi-square vs. Maximum likelihood: ML techniques are preferable for using with data that would suffer loss of information from binning - (the ML estimators also have the property of being asymptotically unbiased and of minimum variance)........
4. Warnings
   • Means, modes & medians
   • Variance (sigma): the Central Limit Theorem vs. reality
   • Super Mongo plot
   • Super Mongo command file to make plot
   • Super Mongo Manual

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M.Drinkwater mjd@phys.unsw.edu.au 1998 Apr 23