What statistics books can you recommend under the context of astronomy? I was looking at "Modern Statistical Methods for Astronomy With R Applications" by Eric D. Feigelson and G. Jogesh Babu, but it is very expensive, and I want a physical copy. I looked at some cheaper, older books as well, but they don't look as comprehensive. I need something that goes from the very basics of stats, to advanced subjects in astronomy/cosmology. Any suggestions?
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3$\begingroup$ Statistics is the same in any context. To avoid developing bias, I think it would be best to learn what you need as you need it, and if you want to be thorough, learn statistical inference and information theory separately in parallel. $\endgroup$– TLDRJun 25, 2016 at 20:46
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$\begingroup$ Have you asked around at the Lab? Don't they have a library? I think you will be lucky to find one book which starts at the basics and goes all the way to advanced topics. $\endgroup$– sammy gerbilJun 25, 2016 at 20:59
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$\begingroup$ One very important ability in science is the ability to apply what you've learned in new contexts - statistical methods are so powerful precisely because they are rather universal, why would you want to learn them "in the context of astronomy"? $\endgroup$– ACuriousMind ♦Jun 26, 2016 at 11:13
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$\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind all I'm saying is I'd like one that has examples from astronomy. It's not not that big a deal, my supervisor advised me to find a statistics book for astronomers. $\endgroup$– user97626Jun 26, 2016 at 16:29
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2 Answers
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I'm not sure if this is exactly what you want, but there's a book called Practical Statistics for Astronomers by J.V. Wall and C.R. Jenkins that might fit the bill. According to the Cambridge University Press website (the book is a part of Cambridge Observing Handbooks for Research Astronomers):
Astronomy needs statistical methods to interpret data, but statistics is a many-faceted subject that is difficult for non-specialists to access. This handbook helps astronomers analyze the complex data and models of modern astronomy. This second edition has been revised to feature many more examples using Monte Carlo simulations, and now also includes Bayesian inference, Bayes factors and Markov chain Monte Carlo integration. Chapters cover basic probability, correlation analysis, hypothesis testing, Bayesian modelling, time series analysis, luminosity functions and clustering. Exercises at the end of each chapter guide readers through the techniques and tests necessary for most observational investigations. The data tables, solutions to problems, and other resources are available online at www.cambridge.org/9780521732499. Bringing together the most relevant statistical and probabilistic techniques for use in observational astronomy, this handbook is a practical manual for advanced undergraduate and graduate students and professional astronomers.
I also found it on Amazon as a paperback for $54.99 new and less used. It's a 374 page book. There's a sample of it on the Amazon website, and there's a sample of it on Google books here.
Hope this helps!
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$\begingroup$ Thanks. I saw this one online during my search, I was just hoping that someone would have used it or others to give advice. I ended up finding the one that I mentioned in the original post at university library, which I can check out for pretty much as long as I want $\endgroup$– user97626Jun 26, 2016 at 16:30
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$\begingroup$ That's great! I'm glad you found something that worked. $\endgroup$– audenJun 26, 2016 at 16:33
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Glad to hear you found the book you were looking for at the library. If you aren't satisfied with its treatment of the R programming language, "The Art of R Programming" is an excellent book on R.
You might also like Tutorials on AstroStatistics by one of the authors of the book you are using, Eric Feigelson.
Eric Feigelson (Penn State University) gave a series of lectures and tutorials on statistical methods for astronomical research on Wednesday Jan 29 and Friday Jan 31, 2014. Two lectures were of general interest, while the others involved training in methodology and the R statistical software language. R is the largest public domain package for applied statistics, growing exponentially since 2001 with ~100,000 functionalities.
The website contains youtube links to all of the lectures, lecture slides, and access to the scripts used in the lectures.
Also, this isn't a statistics book, but these are pretty good lecture notes and slides from a course on statistics meant for astronomy PHD students. The professor who taught this course recommends "Practical Statistics for Astronomers" by Wall and Jenkins, which Heather mentioned.
And if you aren't satisfied with your book's treatment of R, "The Art of R Programming" is an excellent intro to R.