GARY C. RAMSEYER'S FIRST INTERNET GALLERY OF STATISTICS JOKES BY TOPIC

What's the question the Cauchy distribution hates the most?
Got a moment?

*This is only funny if you are steeped in mathematical statistics. Thanks go out to S. Gomatam for contributing this odd one.

If the 2 nd momemt about the mean is the variance, the 3 rd moment is skewness, and the 4 th moment is kurtosis, what is the k th moment?

That's easy.... the k th moment is a KODAK MOMENT!!!

*I better pause a MOMENT and duck before I tell you this one is mine.

Day of the quiz:

Professor: "OK students, you have fifteen minutes to plot the bivariate distribution between A and B, fifteen minutes to compute the correlation between A and B, and 5 SECONDS to compute the kurtosis of B."

One student stands up very worried: "Excuse me Professor, how can we posssibly compute a kurtosis in 5 SECONDS?"

The Professor looks at the class very reassuring: "No need to be worried, kids, IT TAKES ONLY A MOMENT!!"

*Sorry this joke got lost in my notes. But, I want to take this moment to thank Marcello Galluccci of the Free University in the Netherlands for this little tidbit of humor.

An elderly statistician complained to a younger statistician one day that he was having a "senior moment" when he forgot what integrating the normal probability density function produced. The younger statistician said not to worry because all he had to do was to set "junior moment" on his moment generating function and it would spit out "area under the curve." The elderly statistician stared vacantly for a few seconds then confessed that his moment generating function had no such setting and suggested that the younger statistician may have also just had a "senior moment"!

* This little exchange I wrote is dedicated to Professor Robert V. Hogg of the Statistics Department at the University of Iowa who taught me all about moment generating functions. Professor Hogg was an outstanding instructor and his upbeat attitude and interjection of fun into his lectures first gave me the notion that just maybe statistics did not have to be dry and humorless.

Upon being mugged several weeks ago by the Cauchy Distribution, the Normal Distribution had these comments:

"I am still not back to normal yet but I do have my moments and the point of inflection in my voice has improved considerably. I just wish I had taken some ordnance along that night to fend off the attacker." *I did not know that distributions could engage in such outrageous behavior. The Statistics Crime Scene Investigative Unit (SCSIU) has made major recommendations in distribution attacks of this nature. They have strongly urged any distribution to "Always be willing to give up a few moments to an attacker and the attacker like a panhandler will usually stroll away from the scene." This little tale was suggested by a reader whose email got accidently trashed. Please notify me if you are out there.