Story Name: Estimating the Speed of Light
Story Topics:
Science
Datafile Name: Speed of Light
Methods:
Confidence interval
,
Distribution
,
Histogram
,
Outlier
Abstract: Simon Newcomb measured the time required for light to travel from his laboratory on the Potomac River to a mirror at the base of the Washington Monument and back, a total distance of about 7400 meters. These measurements were used to estimate the speed of light.
A histogram or dotplot of these data shows a normal distribution except for two outliers. Newcomb ultimately dropped the lowest outlier, -44, from his analysis. The average measurement may be used to estimate the speed of light, and various confidence intervals for the mean may be calculated. You may wish to calculate means and confidence intervals both including and excluding the outliers.
Image: Histogram of Newton's measurements
Speed of Light Datafile
Datafile Name: Speed of Light
Datafile Subjects:
Famous datasets
,
Science
Story Names:
Estimating the Speed of Light
Reference: Moore, David S., and George P. McCabe (1989). Introduction to the Practice of Statistics. Original source: Stigler, S.M., "Do robust estimators work with real data?" Annals of Statistics, 5 (1977), pp. 1055-1078.
Authorization:
Description: Simon Newcomb measured the time required for light to travel from his laboratory on the Potomac River to a mirror at the base of the Washington Monument and back, a total distance of about 7400 meters. These measurements were used to estimate the speed of light. The datafile contains the estimated speed of light for 66 trials.
Number of cases: 66
Variable Names:
- Speed_of_Light: Speed of Light
The Data:
Speed_of_Light
28
22
36
26
28
28
26
24
32
30
27
24
33
21
36
32
31
25
24
25
28
36
27
32
34
30
25
26
26
25
-44
23
21
30
33
29
27
29
28
22
26
27
16
31
29
36
32
28
40
19
37
23
32
29
-2
24
25
27
24
16
29
20
28
27
39
23
