Part
One: Probability
The
Idea of the Experiment
The
replicable experiment underlies the rigorous applications of statistics.
from
Webster's 9th New Collegiate Dictionary: experiment:
An
operation carried out under controlled conditions in order to discover an
unknown effect or law; to test or establish a hypothesis; or to illustrate a
known law.
From
Dorland's Medical Dictionary (25th Edition): experiment:
A
procedure done in order to discover or demonstrate some fact or general truth.
An
experiment has a few distinctive features:
protocol:
A
well-defined set of procedures to be performed on each trial of the experiment.
regularity/replicability:
The protocol
can be repeated under the same conditions - the basic conditions of the
experiment remain stable across trials of the experiment.
We can
think of an experiment at two levels:
as
the series of individual trials of the experimental protocol;
as
the process which is carried out for each trial in the experiment.