There are a few symbols that flip the average person out. You open the book and it jumps out at you. It’s like you are reading this beautiful story and all of the sudden the language goes from something you understand to dots , circles, and stars. What is this crap? Seriously. Well, if you plan on using statistics throughout your career, you need to learn the lovely language of math symbols. So I came up with a list of decodes that might help your study session go a lot smoother. lol.

 

Ten Math Symbols that Annoy People

 

∑=   Summation. It means add things together.

µ=Usually referring to the mean of the true population

∞=infinity

±= plus or minus

α=alpha symbol that represents your rejection region for hypothesis testing

^= If you see this symbol on top of a variable it means you have the estimate of a parameter. example:  û

π=usually represents probability in a binomial distribution.

∉=It means does not belong to

ß=Slope associate with a specific parameter estimate, such as the risk factors in your statistics model

σ=Standard deviation for the Population

s=Standard deviation for the Sample Population

Okay I gave 11 symbols. So what?

 

If you enjoyed this small blog there is more to follow.

 

Amy