Mastering pandas - Second Edition

The null and alternative hypotheses

By referring to the preceding spinach example, the null hypothesis would be "Eating spinach has no effect on long-term memory performance".

The null hypothesis is just that—it nullifies what we're trying to prove by running our experiment. It does so by asserting that a statistical metric (to be explained later) is zero.

The alternative hypothesis is what we hope to support. It is the opposite of the null hypothesis and we assume it to be true until the data provides sufficient evidence that indicates otherwise. Thus, our alternative hypothesis, in this case, is "Eating spinach results in an improvement in long-term memory".

Symbolically, the null hypothesis is referred to as H0 and the alternative hypothesis ...