[EX02-188] One of the first scientists to study the density of nitrogen was Lord Raleigh. He noticed that the density of nitrogen produced from the air seemed to be greater than the density of nitrogen produced from chemical compounds. Do his conclusions seem to be justified even though he has so little data?

Lord Raleigh’s measurements, which first appeared in Proceedings, Royal Society (London, 55, 1894, pp. 340–344) are listed here. The data are the mass of nitrogen filling a certain flask under specified pressure and temperature.

Atmospheric Chemical 2.31017 2.31010 2.30143 2.29940 2.30986 2.31028 2.29890 2.29849 2.31010 2.31163 2.29816 2.29889 2.31001 2.30956 2.30182 2.30074 2.31024 2.29869 2.30054 Source: http://exploringdata.cqu.edu.au/datasets/nitrogen.xls

a. Construct side-by-side dotplots of the two sets of data, using a common scale.

b. Calculate mean, median, standard deviation, and first and third quartiles for each set of data.

c. Construct side-by-side boxplots of the two sets of data, using a common scale.

d. Discuss how these two sets of data compare.

Do these two very small sets of data show convincing evidence of a difference?

FYI The differences between these sets of data helped lead to the discovery of argon.