Better Business Decisions from Data

PART        VII

Big Data

I am one of the unpraised, unrewarded millions without whom Statistics would be a bankrupt science. It is we who are born, who marry, who die, in constant ratios.

—Logan Pearsall Smith

In the previous chapters, we have been concerned with small and large samples, the dividing line usually taken to be at about 30 data items. Now we need to discuss very large samples—not just somewhat larger, but enormously larger. The transition to what has become known as big data has not only introduced new methods and procedures but also created a new way of thinking about statistics. It has rapidly advanced from relying on limited sampling to a situation in which all of us, knowingly or unknowingly, are involved in providing vast ...