Death Statistics Analysis

Statistics are an important part of the analysis of death, and thus it would be helpful to know a bit more about statistical analysis. One thing worth knowing is how a data set is sorted by a program like Microsoft Excel. One simple method is the bubble sort, where a for loop works its way through the set, comparing each set of two sequential numbers. If they are not in the correct ascending/descending order, then they and their keys are swapped before the loop moves on and a variable that would otherwise indicated the list is done sorting is set to false. Another method is the selection sort, where a for loop goes through the list trying to find the highest or lowest number. It swaps this with the top and then starts a second loop at the second number, finding the highest or the lowest out of that set. These two methods are demonstrated below - note the difference in the number of steps it takes each to sort the data. The third method, the quick sort, is a bit more complex to implement, relying on recursion to split the list into subsections which are sorted around a pivot. Note: For whatever reason, this crashes Netscape 4.05 and earlier versions, and it has not been tested with later versions.

Sorting data is of more importance than identifying the largest and smallest in a given set. If we were sorting life expectancy data, ordering the data would enable us to determine the median life expectancy. The median is the number that falls in the center when a data set is put in order. This can then be compared the mean life expectancy. No, the mean life expectancy is not the one with the worst manners. It's the mathematical average you are used to taking - adding all of the numbers and dividing by the total number of members in the set. The difference between these two give some idea of the skew in the data - the degree to which the distribution is not symmetrical and extremes occur on only one side of the majority. Other statistical properties of a set include its mode - the most common number and the range - the area within which a value falls. For example, it would be more useful to know the mode age of a room fille with one adult and ten kids than the mean.