Statistics underlie much of what we do and what goes on in the world. Which numbers come up in the lottery, how many people are killed in road accidents, the link between diet and disease, and how long we live. Chance has always played a part in human life and traditionally the effects have been ascribed to the gods or to that strange commodity “luck”. The science of statistics can be reasonably said to start with Thomas Bayes's paper of 1763. Since then the subject has grown, and is growing fast as witnessed by the fact that this book has had three editions with a mere four years between each.
The target audience for this dictionary is quite wide. Simple questions like lethal dose 50, labour force survey and principal curve have simple explanations with little mathematics. More complex topics like the Behrens‐Fisher problem involving the equality of means between distributions that have different variations get a complex answer with mathematical formulae. The majority or entries have a reference to more information. The authors have used nine principal sources and these are listed at the beginning and referred to by short abbreviations (a practice widely used in the humanities, but less common in the sciences). Where other sources have been used a full reference is given. Italic type in the text directs the user to other entries that define a concept. There are also see also recommendations that examine related topics.
As the examples quoted earlier show the dictionary covers statistic in the mathematical sense (UDC 519.2) and also briefly covers some of the use of statistics as description (UDC 311). When Reference Reviews reviewed the second edition (RR 2003/26) the reviewer wrote “this is probably the ideal reference book for everyone working in the field of statistics”. I would increase the confidence limits on this statement. The very full provision of references, and the fact that there is a hardback version, makes this the sort of reference book libraries should seriously consider. Certainly any organization the deals with statistics in the mathematical sense will find this book of value.
