Testing gradient against a value

[garytse86]

Homework Statement

I have 25 pairs of values. I have a gradient and want to test if this gradient is significantly different from 1. Which stats test do I use? I thought of using a one-sample t-test, but how are you meant to put 25 gradients in the test!? thanks...

 

[astrorob]

Why are there 25 gradients? If you have 25 pairs of values (all presumably obtained from the same experiment), you would normally put these pairs of values into a least-squares fitting algorithm to find the most suitable gradient and its error.

If you google "JLineFit" you'll find a program that can do this for you.

In its simplest form, you could assume it's signficantly different if the value and error on the gradient doesn't span a range encompassing a value of 1.