The discussion revolves around the concept of a 95% confidence interval and its interpretation in the context of statistical sampling and population means.
Some participants have provided explanations regarding the nature of confidence intervals, while others are seeking clarification on their interpretations. There appears to be a mix of understanding and confusion, with ongoing questions about the validity of the initial thoughts expressed.
Participants are grappling with the definitions and implications of confidence intervals, indicating a need for further exploration of the underlying statistical concepts.
eterna said:Homework Statement
What does it mean?
Does this mean that 95% of the means from a sample mean distribution (frequency distribution of means of sample size n) are a certain number of standard deviations from the population mean?
Homework Equations
The Attempt at a Solution
Ray Vickson said:A 95% confidence interval is an interval that has a 95% chance of overlapping the true, unknown population mean μ. In other words, if you were to repeat the sampling experiment many times you would get many different intervals, but about 95% of them would contain the true mean somewhere inside them. See, eg., http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confidence_interval and look especially at the section entitled "Meaning and Interpretation".
eterna said:so was what I said a completely wrong way of thinking about it?