The Strength In Numbers

About the Book

This book is an excellent compilation, review, and summary of the fundamentals of mathematics and statistics for prospective teachers, graduate students that are returning to school in technical disciplines, talented high school students planning to go on to college, and for anybody that needs to, wants to, or just enjoys reading about math, statistics, and its many applications. The book is organized into three main parts: Math Fundamentals, Probability Fundamentals, and Statistics Fundamentals. In the math part, there are chapters on logic, set and number theory, algebra and geometry, and the fundamentals of trigonometry and the single variable calculus. In the probability part, there are chapters on combinatorics and probability, random variables, probability distributions and their parameters. In the statistics part, there are chapters on simple random samples and some common statistics, the law of large numbers, many common probability distributions, the normal distribution and its relation to the Central Limit Theorem, the basics of small and large sample statistical inference involving hypothesis testing and confidence interval estimation, and an introduction to linear regression and the associated idea of correlation. The reader has been supplied with many exercises, along with the answers in an appendix. These should help to reinforce the basic ideas for the reader as they proceed through the book. It should be noted that there is a significant amount of the book devoted to the single variable calculus, since it is so important for many students of technical subjects. However, the last two parts of the book devoted to probability and statistics are presented in an entirely algebraic way and do not involve calculus. This should not lessen the books usefulness for most readers.

About the Author

Timothy C Kearns was born in Arlington, Va. and has spent most of his life in Northern Va. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree (with honors) from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI & SU), in Blacksburg, Va. in June of 1983. His major was in statistics, with a minor in mathematics. He earned an additional Associate in Science degree from Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC), in Annandale, Va. in December of 1998. His concentration at NVCC was in general studies. At these two colleges, his coursework included additional math, physics, chemistry, computer science, operations research, queueing theory, astronomy, DC and AC circuit courses, logic and philosophy, and more. After graduating from college in 1983, he worked as a computer programmer at the U.S. Census Bureau for three years. In addition, he has approximately 20 years of work experience as a math, statistics, and physics tutor. At Va. Tech, he was inducted into the national mathematics honor fraternity Pi Mu Epsilon, and the national statistics honor fraternity Mu Sigma Rho. He has been a lifelong scholar, cultivating expertise in theoretical and applied mathematics along with considerable knowledge of statistics. He is exceptionally qualified to write this book, which provides an excellent resource for students of the mathematical sciences.