VGAM (version 0.9-4)

ruge: Rutherford-Geiger Polonium Data

Description

Decay counts of polonium recorded by Rutherford and Geiger (1910).

Usage

data(ruge)

source

Rutherford, E. and Geiger, H. (1910) The Probability Variations in the Distribution of alpha Particles, Philosophical Magazine, 20, 698--704.

Details

These are the radioactive decay counts of polonium recorded by Rutherford and Geiger (1910) representing the number of scintillations in 2608 1/8 minute intervals. For example, there were 57 frequencies of zero counts. The counts can be thought of as being approximately Poisson distributed.

Examples

lambdahat <- with(ruge, weighted.mean(number, w = counts))
(N <- with(ruge, sum(counts)))
with(ruge, cbind(number, counts,
                 fitted = round(N * dpois(number, lam = lambdahat))))