Abstract
THIS is the first volume of a second edition of a book first published in 1939. The complete book is intended to be an introduction to the more elementary theory and methods of mathematical statistics. The present volume confines its attention almost exclusively to the descriptive theory of statistics. Within this limit, it provides a very carefully and clearly written and admirably printed introduction to the subject, well suited to a student without mathematical knowledge, or working alone. After chapters on the description of frequency distribution by graphical methods, averages, moments and measures of dispersion, the normal distribution is shortly considered, followed by the fitting of linear and quadratic polynomials and the theory of correlation. These subjects are explained with great clarity and at considerable length ; but it seems a pity that in so large a book, costing so much, no room was found for an elementary account of sampling and the testing of statistics. As a consequence the student who wishes to decide how much reliance to put on the results of his calculations will have to turn to volume 2 or some other book. This volume by itself is therefore not very useful to a biologist or other experimentalist.
Mathematics of Statistics
By John F. Kenney. Part 1. Second edition. Pp. xii + 260. (New York: D. Van Nostrand Co., Inc.; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1947.) 21s. net.
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MORAN, P. Mathematics of Statistics. Nature 161, 544 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161544b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161544b0