Editing 881: Probability
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
| − | [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting on a hospital bed, reading a piece of paper with the statistics for {{w|breast cancer}} survival. It looks like Megan has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The thick line represents the survival rate distribution (probability to be alive after X years, unconditioned): 81% are alive at 5 years, while 77% survive to 10 years. The dashed line represents the {{w|hazard function}} ( | + | [[Cueball]] and [[Megan]] are sitting on a hospital bed, reading a piece of paper with the statistics for {{w|breast cancer}} survival. It looks like Megan has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. The thick line represents the survival rate distribution (probability to be alive after X years, unconditioned): 81% are alive at 5 years, while 77% survive to 10 years. The dashed line represents the {{w|hazard function}} (in very loose terms, the risk of failing/dying at time t+delta after having survived until time t), which is the rate between the density of the failure distribution and the survival function. |
| − | [[Randall]] wrote this comic after his fiancee was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two months after posting this strip, he posted [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ this blog post] explaining the | + | [[Randall]] wrote this comic after his fiancee was diagnosed with breast cancer. Two months after posting this strip, he posted [http://blog.xkcd.com/2011/06/30/family-illness/ this blog post] explaining the cancer strips. |
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| + | The title text could be a reference to the comic [[55: Useless]]. Cueball's (and [[Randall]]'s) normal approach — math — isn't much help in dealing with ''this'' emotional situation, either. The phrase "normal approach" may also in this case be a pun on the {{w|Normal distribution}}, which is another probability distribution that is commonly used in statistics. Interpreted this way, the title text states that the "Normal distribution" is not used as a hazard function. | ||
==Transcript== | ==Transcript== | ||
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:[A simple table.] | :[A simple table.] | ||
| − | :;5 years | + | :{| class="wikitable" |
| − | + | |- | |
| − | + | |  5 years | |
| − | + | | 81% | |
| + | |- | ||
| + | | 10 years | ||
| + | | 77% | ||
| + | |} | ||
:[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a bench, next to an Intravenous drip hanging from a rack. Cueball is holding a paper.] | :[Cueball and Megan are sitting on a bench, next to an Intravenous drip hanging from a rack. Cueball is holding a paper.] | ||
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[[Category:Cancer]] | [[Category:Cancer]] | ||
[[Category:Charts]] | [[Category:Charts]] | ||
| − | |||
[[Category:Math]] | [[Category:Math]] | ||
[[Category:Statistics]] | [[Category:Statistics]] | ||
