University of Silesia in Katowice

Statistically speaking, short articles of any kind are more likely to be read by your audience. Briefly – but succinctly – about statistics from a mathematical point of view.

Today we celebrate the Statistics Poland’s Day. What is a statistic anyway? Maybe not everyone knows that it has several meanings. First, it is a science that describes and analyses all kinds of phenomena. Secondly, statistics are sets of properly grouped data. On the other hand, in mathematics, statistics is a certain function.

In that case, you can ask yourself: the holiday of which statistics are we celebrating today?

The answer is very simple: each of them. But why? All three definitions of statistics are closely related. Statistics in the mathematical sense is a function thanks to which we have a theory that allows for scientific inference about selected properties of the studied characteristics in the general population on the basis of a random sample, i.e. based on data. Such data analysis, and hence the description of the phenomenon, is also statistics. We make a description, analysis or inference on the basis of the aforementioned data, i.e. a set of information, and therefore based on statistics. And if someone knows other meanings of statistics, then most likely they are also related to the above.

As you can see a lot is hidden behind the statistics and it is really worth taking a closer look at it. Personally, I am most captivated by the way it is applied in many sciences and areas of life.