May 1, 2007 (Vol. 27, No. 9)
URL:
Rating:
Strong Points: Useful tools
Weak Points: Spartan interfaces
Summary:
I must confess—my training in statistics is pretty poor and I’m not proud of it. Whenever I can find a site that helps me with my shortcomings in this area, I latch onto it. It was for this reason that I was interested in Statistics to Use, a free subset of the Tools for Science site. First, the Tools for Science site offers an interesting mix of pages to scientists. Topics range from astronomy to quantum mechanics, which won’t be of much use to readers here, but two subsections on statistics and plotting will be. Statistics tools include t-tests, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, chi-square distribution tests, ANOVA, least squares regression, and others. Plotting routines include X-Y plots, error bar plots, and histograms, among others. It should be noted that the interfaces are spartan, but at the prices (free) of the products, who can complain?