Having Trouble Understanding Chi Squared Stuff

1. Nov 22, 2006

Poop-Loops

So I have my fit for my data (in this case it's the e/m lab, where the slope of my trend line = e/m).

And I calculated the required y - (Ax + B) values, but I have no idea what to use for standard deviation to divide each value by. To be honest, I'm just lost in the notation. I remember in the lecture hearing that if all the STD's are the same, you can pull that out of the sum, but I have no idea which STD's he was talking about, since I have 3 different measured quantities.

Also, degrees of freedom. Since I used 5 data points and had to measure 3 different quantities for each point, I would use D = 5 - 3 = 2?

2. Nov 22, 2006

Poop-Loops

I figured it out! I just make up the data to make it look pretty! That's how you get all the grant money.

3. Nov 23, 2006

Poop-Loops

No, seriously, I could still use some help.

I think I figured out which STD to use. Since my y-values are averages from 5 sets of data to get 5 data points, I just use the STD for the 5 different sets of data as my 5 different STD's, right?

I'm still not sure I understand the degree's of freedom, though.

4. Nov 27, 2006

EnumaElish

Last edited by a moderator: May 2, 2017