Chapter 2
Overcoming Mathophobia: Reading and Understanding Mathematical Expressions
In This Chapter
Reading mathematical notation
Understanding formulas and what they mean
Working with arrays (collections of numbers)
Face it: Most people fear math, and statistics is — to a large extent — mathematical. I want to show you how to read mathematical expressions (which are combinations of numbers, letters, math operations, punctuation, and grouping symbols), equations (which connect two expressions with an equal sign), and formulas (which are equations that tell you how to calculate something), so you can understand what’s in a statistics book or article. I also explain how to write formulas, so you can tell a computer how to manipulate your data.
In this chapter, I just use the term formula for simplicity to refer to formulas, equations, and expressions.
I show you how to interpret the kinds of mathematical formulas you encounter throughout this book. I don’t spend too much time explaining what the more complicated mathematical operations mean; I concentrate on how those operations are indicated in formulas. If you’re not sure about the algebra, you can find an excellent treatment ...
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