Beyond Basic Statistics: Tips, Tricks, and Techniques Every Data Analyst Should Know

6FIVE-HOUR MARRIAGES: CONTINUOUS DISTRIBUTIONS, TESTS FOR NORMALITY, AND JUICY HOLLYWOOD SCANDALS

Hollywood, California, a magical place where the rich and beautiful live. A place where success is measured in starring movie roles, and incomes are measured in millions. A place filled with decadence and dreams and bikinis and botox.

No wonder ordinary people are fascinated with Hollywood, especially those scandals that leak from every pore of the city’s perfectly tanned complexion. One of the most popular scandals seems to be the hook-up/break-up story, where we watch as two celebrities get romantic, get married, and get divorced. These marriages never seem to last long. Singer Britney Spears’ marriage to Jason Alexander lasted just two days. Celebrity Kim Kardashian’s marriage to Kris Humphries lasted just seventy-two days. Actress Drew Barrymore has had two short-lived marriages, one lasting five months and the other lasting just thirty days. The success of a normal marriage is typically measured in years, but stories like these make us wonder if the success of a Hollywood marriage should be measured in weeks or even days.

Is it really true that celebrities just can’t stay committed? Or is our national hook-up/break-up obsession causing us to think this way?

Hypothesis tests are one of the most powerful techniques in the data analyst’s arsenal. The most commonly used hypothesis tests rely on the assumption of normality, in other words, that the data follow a normal distribution. ...