# 7.2 A single population mean using the student t distribution --

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In practice, we rarely know the population standard deviation . In the past, when the sample size was large, this did not present a problem to statisticians. They used the sample standard deviation s as an estimate for σ and proceeded as before to calculate a confidence interval with close enough results. However, statisticians ran into problems when the sample size was small. A small sample size caused inaccuracies in the confidence interval.

William S. Goset (1876–1937) of the Guinness brewery in Dublin, Ireland ran into this problem. His experiments with hops and barley produced very few samples. Just replacing σ with s did not produce accurate results when he tried to calculate a confidence interval. He realized that he could not use a normal distribution for the calculation; he found that the actual distribution depends on the sample size. This problem led him to "discover" what is called the Student's t-distribution . The name comes from the fact that Gosset wrote under the pen name "Student."

Up until the mid-1970s, some statisticians used the normal distribution approximation for large sample sizes and only used the Student's t-distribution only for sample sizes of at most 30. With graphing calculators and computers, the practice now is to use the Student's t-distribution whenever s is used as an estimate for σ .

If you draw a simple random sample of size n from a population that has an approximately a normal distribution with mean μ and unknown population standard deviation σ and calculate the t -score t = $\frac{\overline{x}–\mu }{\left(\frac{s}{\sqrt{n}}\right)}$ , then the t -scores follow a Student's t-distribution with n – 1 degrees of freedom . The t -score has the same interpretation as the z -score . It measures how far $\overline{x}$ is from its mean μ . For each sample size n , there is a different Student's t-distribution.

The degrees of freedom , n – 1 , come from the calculation of the sample standard deviation s . We can use n deviations $\left(x–\overline{x}\text{values}\right)$ to calculate s . Because the sum of the deviations is zero, we can find the last deviation once we know the other n – 1 deviations. The other n – 1 deviations can change or vary freely. We call the number n – 1 the degrees of freedom (df).

## Properties of the student's t-distribution

• The graph for the Student's t-distribution is similar to the standard normal curve.
• The mean for the Student's t-distribution is zero and the distribution is symmetric about zero.
• The Student's t-distribution has more probability in its tails than the standard normal distribution because the spread of the t-distribution is greater than the spread of the standard normal. So the graph of the Student's t-distribution will be thicker in the tails and shorter in the center than the graph of the standard normal distribution.
• The exact shape of the Student's t-distribution depends on the degrees of freedom. As the degrees of freedom increases, the graph of Student's t-distribution becomes more like the graph of the standard normal distribution.
• The underlying population of individual observations is assumed to be normally distributed with unknown population mean μ and unknown population standard deviation σ . The size of the underlying population is generally not relevant unless it is very small. If it is bell shaped (normal) then the assumption is met and doesn't need discussion. Random sampling is assumed, but that is a completely separate assumption from normality.

#### Questions & Answers

Is there any normative that regulates the use of silver nanoparticles?
Damian Reply
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Renato
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Stoney Reply
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?
Kyle
yes I'm doing my masters in nanotechnology, we are being studying all these domains as well..
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Kyle
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Joe
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Damian Reply
research.net
kanaga
sciencedirect big data base
Ernesto
Introduction about quantum dots in nanotechnology
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what does nano mean?
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nano basically means 10^(-9). nanometer is a unit to measure length.
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characteristics of micro business
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s. Reply
there is no specific books for beginners but there is book called principle of nanotechnology
NANO
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Devang Reply
are you nano engineer ?
s.
fullerene is a bucky ball aka Carbon 60 molecule. It was name by the architect Fuller. He design the geodesic dome. it resembles a soccer ball.
Tarell
what is the actual application of fullerenes nowadays?
Damian
That is a great question Damian. best way to answer that question is to Google it. there are hundreds of applications for buck minister fullerenes, from medical to aerospace. you can also find plenty of research papers that will give you great detail on the potential applications of fullerenes.
Tarell
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Mostly, they use nano carbon for electronics and for materials to be strengthened.
Virgil
is Bucky paper clear?
CYNTHIA
carbon nanotubes has various application in fuel cells membrane, current research on cancer drug,and in electronics MEMS and NEMS etc
NANO
so some one know about replacing silicon atom with phosphorous in semiconductors device?
s. Reply
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s.
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for screen printed electrodes ?
SUYASH
What is lattice structure?
s. Reply
of graphene you mean?
Ebrahim
or in general
Ebrahim
in general
s.
Graphene has a hexagonal structure
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Source:  OpenStax, Statistics i - math1020 - red river college - version 2015 revision a - draft 2015-10-24. OpenStax CNX. Oct 24, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11891/1.8
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