How Is Statistics Different Than Math? 

If you’re interested in mathematics, it’s likely you also want to learn about statistics. Both are important subjects, and they can help you understand many aspects of life. However, they are different in several ways. 

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One of the major differences between statistics and math is their approach to data. While math creates an idealized model of reality, statistics accepts that the world is random and infers that a lot of information can be uncovered from examining real-life data. 

Another major difference is that statistics is a more applied discipline than pure math, whereas math is a rigorous study of numbers and formulas. It’s often used in business, government, and engineering, among other areas. 

The first major difference between statistics and math is that statistics uses quantitative variables while math is more qualitative in nature. Quantitative variables include things like the number of points scored by a football team, while qualitative variables are more about how the individual players are positioned on the field. 

When using quantitative variables, you’ll often need to convert them into discrete values. This is because there may be gaps between possible values and because it’s difficult to accurately measure something in decimals, like the number of points scored by a team. 

While discrete values have limitations, they can still be useful in certain situations. For example, you might want to know how many miles were driven on a car per week, or how much time a person spends reading a book. 

In both cases, you’ll need to be able to tell whether the data satisfies some assumptions. While there are some mathematical procedures for deciding this, they aren’t universal and sometimes it’s better to simply guess. 

This is because there aren’t any strict rules for determining when the data is normally distributed or not. That’s why we often see the term “outliers” when discussing statistical methods; if a method is being used on data that has too many outliers, it can be very unreliable and give poor results.