3.3. Why Statistics for Engineers?

In engineering, statistics shows up in everything from manufacturing tolerances, to research, to product reliability.

The goal of statistics is to accurately predict the probability of an event.

To meet this goal, we need to create an accurate mathematical model that correlates the attributes of a sample with that of the population it was taken from.

Like all mathematical models- statistics is an approximation.

For very simple cases, the model fits very well.

For complex cases, the model must be used properly or erroneous results will occur.