Statistics in Theory and Practice

Rating:
Summary: A very useful book.
Review: The departmental library finally demanded their copy of this book back from me, so I had to go out and buy my own copy.

This textbook does a good job of combining the theory behind statistical techniques with practical, worked examples and problems. It's not an introductory statistics book: a working knowledge of basic statistical techniques, calculus and computer programming are needed to take full advantage of the material. It is, however, an excellent textbook/how-to manual for senior undergraduates, graduate students and researchers working in the sciences.

Techniques such as Bayesien statistics and Maximum Likelihood Estimators, the Bootstrap technique, hypothesis testing, and tests of fit are frequently used in the physical sciences. Finding good, textbook style explanations and examples (including worked examples to check your code against) is difficult. This isn't a cookbook in the style of Numerical Recipes, but the examples provided are very useful.

Statistics is a slippery subject, and small errors in understanding can produce meaningless results. This book is a useful tool for making your statisics more accurate in an understandable fashion. I used it extensively during my thesis, and recommend it highly.