An Introduction to Error Analysis: The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurements

by John R. Taylor

This remarkable text by John R. Taylor has been a non-stop best-selling international hit since it was first published forty years ago. However, the two-plus decades since the second edition was released have seen two dramatic developments; the huge rise in popularity of Bayesian statistics, and the continued increase in the power and availability of computers and calculators. In response to the former, Taylor has added a full chapter dedicated to Bayesian thinking, introducing conditional probabilities and Bayes’ theorem. The several examples presented in the new third edition are intentionally very simple, designed to give readers a clear understanding of what Bayesian statistics is all about as their first step on a journey to become practicing Bayesians. In response to the second development, Taylor has added a number of chapter-ending problems that will encourage readers to learn how to solve problems using computers. While many of these can be solved using programs such as Matlab or Mathematica, almost all of them are stated to apply to commonly available spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel. These programs provide a convenient way to record and process data and to calculate quantities like standard deviations, correlation coefficients, and normal distributions; they also have the wonderful ability – if students construct their own spreadsheets and avoid the temptation to use built-in functions – to teach the meaning of these concepts.

Genres: Physics, Textbooks, Science, Mathematics, Nonfiction, Reference, Technical

392 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1982

About the author

John Taylor is Professor of Physics and Presidential Teaching Scholar at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He took his B.A. in mathematics from Cambridge University and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley, where he studied the theory of elementary particles. He has taught at the Universities of Cambridge and London in England, and at Princeton. and Colorado in the U.S. He first came to Colorado in 1966. Since then he has won five university and departmental teaching awards. He is the author of three text books: a graduate text on quantum scattering theory; an undergraduate text on error analysis, which has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, and Spanish; and an undergraduate

text on modem physics. The second edition of the book on error analysis appeared in 1997. His research interests include quantum scattering theory and the foundations of quantum theory, and he has published some fifty articles in journals such as the Physical Review and the Journal of Mathematical Physics. For several years he was Associate Editor of the American Journal of Physics.
For the past eighteen years he has given his "Mr. Wizard" shows to some 60,000 children on the Boulder campus and in many towns in Colorado. He received an Emmy Award for his television series "Physics for Fun", which aired on KCNC TV in 1988 -1990. In 1989 he was awarded the Distinguished Service Citation of the American Association of Physics Teachers. In the same year, he won one of eleven Gold Medals in the national "Professor of the Year" program and was named Colorado Professor of the Year. In 1998, at the invitation of the International Science Festival in Dunedin, he toured New Zealand and gave IS "Mr. Wizard" shows in various museums and colleges.

Reviews

[Aroosha Dehghan · Rating 3 out of 5]

این کتاب یکی از منابع مهم دانشجویان علوم پایه (به‌ویژه گرایش‌های فیزیک و شیمی) و کارهای آزمایشگاهی رشته‌های مهندسی، برای کاهش عدم قطعیت در محاسباته. مهم‌ترین نکته‌ش اینه که دانشجو رو کاملا صفر کیلومتر فرض می‌کنه و از ابتدایی‌ترین موارد تا مباحث پیشرفته رو توضیح میده برای همین اگر کسی در این زمینه کنجکاو باشه هم می‌تونه مطالعه‌ش کنه. کلی مثال و تمرین حل شده و تمرین حل نشده هم داره که در یادگیری بهتر و تثبیت مطالب خیلی موثره.
من نمی‌دونم این کتاب برای رشته‌های غیر از فیزیک چقدر کارآمده چون خودم فیزیک‌خوانم و نویسنده‌ش فیزیکدان اما با توجه به بازخوردهای کتاب، به نظر می‌رسه که غیرفیزیک‌پیشه‌ها هم تونستن ازش به خوبی استفاده کنن.
و البته طبق معمول نود و نه درصد کتاب‌های علوم پایه، این کتاب هم ترجمه نشده و به سختی در بازار کتاب گیر میاد. باز هم چاره‌ای نیست جز کور کردن چشم و خواندن نسخه‌ی الکترونیک که به طرز بی‌شرمانه‌ای مجبوریم غیرقانونی دانلودش کنیم.

[Michael Bibbs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taylor Taylor Taylor

[sbs transit · Rating 3 out of 5]

#nsreads 10

Neither concise enough to be a reference manual, nor comprehensive enough to serve as a proper text. The cardinal sin of any statistics work is to introduce results without outlining motivations or providing derivations - and wholly does this book deliver on that account.

[Daniel Cunningham · Rating 4 out of 5]

Clear introduction to "statistics" for physical scientists. Used for a one quarter class.

Caveat on my rating: we did not use the problems from the book except in very rare cases, so my rating does not include any experience with those.

[Eric Heidle]

Best book cover design of all time.

[Dimitris Papadimitriou · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing book. Clear and also very useful for undergrad physics!

[Pooja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing but 5..

[Haider · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am doing research on error analysis in English grammar

[Feliks Czenske · Rating 5 out of 5]

i wouldn't get through the semester if it wasn't for this book. ily taylor <3

[P. Metzmacher · Rating 1 out of 5]

Prolix and dull.

[Stuart Woolf · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book mostly to review material I already knew - which is to say, I read Part I somewhat casually and skimmed Part II. That being said, this is definitely a book I wish I had read earlier - like, while I was learning this stuff in college. (Not sure how it is at other universities, but physics students at mine were never formally taught error analysis; we were simply expected to "pick it up" on the go. This is largely the way it was with statistical mechanics as well; as far as I know, none of us had taken a formal statistics course beforehand.)

Taylor wrote what was probably the most popular undergraduate textbook in the physics department (on classical mechanics.) The purposes of this book are different, but I find it equally as good. His pedagogical approach is to introduce the material as it is used in experiments and then justify the methods theoretically. (Most physics texts do the opposite: in some sense it is "purer" to do it this way, but it also requires the reader to connect the dots between first principles and results, results they may not be familiar with.) Certainly, there is some risk in delaying proofs (the reader may have a poorer grasp of what he or she is doing) but, personally, I preferred Taylor's approach. Educating his readers is clearly his first priority.

The book is also short - a good thing for this subject.

[Louay Hassan · Rating 5 out of 5]

In my long search for a book that explains error analysis stripping doing to the very basics, I have found reading this book quite rewarding.

Part I of this book starts right from the very basics of error analysis with a very clear theoretical approach to the "uncertainty" and "Error Propagation" concepts. If you are baffled by the ''uncertainty'' concept chapter 3 and 4 is bound to clear out the confusion or plug in a few missing gaps.

With a good introduction of the basic statistical concepts in part I, you can dive in part II of the book for more statistical analysis techniques that should be useful and familiar to all everyone dealing with results analysis and recording.

The book assumes no previous knowledge on the topic however you will need to have a good knowledge of calculus if the derivations are of importance to you, as the book doesn't offer detailed explanations for this.

A classic reference textbook with one of the best book covers that you may come across.

[Jerry Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book covers pretty much everything you will ever need in error analysis. It both reads and explains things very well, taking the time to actually explain steps and not just doing them and boxing the final answer (though it does box things conveniently when you're using it as reference), saying Wallah!

It won't give you everything if you're working in multiple dimensions sometimes however, but I could use the basic outline Taylor presents to derive the analogous equation that I needed myself.

This will cover everything from uncertainties to the chi-squared test, which you will need if your going to write up a good lab report. You'll also get useful Poisson and Gaussian distribution charts and equations so you can model your data in excel or just get a rough ball park of your error and standard deviation just by looking at your data and errors, which is pretty cool.

You should understand partial derivatives, exponential equations, and Reimann sums when using this book.

[dead letter office · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good (very) basic introduction to the analysis of uncertainty. Written with undergraduate physicists in mind, and he does a good job communicating the intuition involved in handling uncertainty. Good for anyone who wants the motivation but doesn't need the mathematics behind the machinery. And it's definitely got one of the top 10 textbook covers of all time.

[Grace · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read an earlier edition of this book. But it deserves its classic status.

[Sergey · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first the book seemed to be a little too school-ish and simple. Yet it contains all the necessary basis information to start understanding uncertainties. Just what I needed.

[Simona · Rating 5 out of 5]

very good intro to error analysis, good reasoning & explanations, well organized