Analysis is the resolution of an object whether of the senses or the intellect, into its component elements. In philosophy it is the mode of resolving a compound idea into its simple parts, in order to consider them more distinctly, and arrive at a more precise knowledge of the whole. Analysis is opposed to synthesis, by which we combine and class our perceptions, and contrive expressions for our thoughts, so as to represent their several divisions, classes, and relations.
In mathematics, analysis is, in the widest sense, the expression and development of the functions of quantities by calculation;
in a narrower sense the resolving of problems by algebraic equations. The analysis of the ancients was exhibited only in geometry, and made use only of geometrical assistance, whereby it is distinguished from the analysis of the moderns, which extends to all measurable objects, and expresses in equations the mutual dependence of magnitudes. Analysis is divided into lower and higher, the lower comprising, besides arithmetic and algebra, the doctrines of functions, of series, combinations, logarithms, and curves, the higher comprising the differential and integral calculus, and the calculus of variations.
In chemistry, analysis is the process of decomposing a compound substance with a view to determine either (a) what elements it contains (known as qualitative analysis), or (b) how much of each element is present (known as quantitative analysis). Thus by the first process we learn that water is a compound of hydrogen and oxygen, and by the second that it consists of one part of hydrogen by weight to eight parts of oxygen. Research Analysis
Graphology is the analysis or judging of a person's character by means of their handwriting, a pursuit that first attained some vogue around 1900. The tendency to regard a certain style of writing as indicative of certain mental characteristics appears to be natural, and is certainly not of modern origin, but the term graphology is modern, being attributed to the Abbe Michot in 1868, who also expounded a corresponding system, though other French writers, besides those of other nationalities, are said to have placed it on a more secure basis. We are told that as gestures, movements of the features and the hands, the sound of the voice, etc, help to reveal a person's character, so also handwriting can give us similar help, writing being the result of a series of small gestures, and the hands being influenced by the thoughts and feelings of the writer. Research Graphology
Originally, statistics was the branch of political science dealing with the collection, classification, and discussion of numerical facts relating to the condition of a State or community. Now it is the study of numerical data, their classification and analysis. It embraces every department of activity and knowledge to which numerical comparison can be applied, but properly applies to social facts, and its greatest use is in economics and public administration.
The usefulness of statistics is seriously reduced by the ease with which they may be slewed. For example: statistically air transportation is safer than travelling by motor car when comparing accidents over the distance travelled, that is per mile travelled. However, when one compares the statistics of fatalities over the number of journeys made, irrespective of distance, then travelling by aeroplane is ten times more likely to be fatal than travelling by motor car (according to the British Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents).
A further example of how statistics can be slewed is in the popular use of averages, properly the mean average. The reliability of a mean average in establishing the general value of a group of values is strongly dependant upon the large number of elements being compared. For example, if a government wishes to show that the average wage being paid to workers is far higher than it really is, they need only to include a few extraordinary high wage values in the set of figures to offset the more prevalent low values. For example, take a set of 1000 elements each of which has a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Obviously the mean average will accurately describe a value between 18,000 and 20,000. Now add a single value of 500,000 to the set and the mean average will rise by over 450, and yet the most common value will remain the same, between 18,000 and 20,000.
Careful selection of values for inclusion in statistics can also be used to slew the results. A survey of members of the public sounds objective, and gives the impression of being representative of the populace. However, a survey of the public in which only men wearing business suits are selected will in all likelihood produce very different results to a survey in which equal proportions of men and women of varying ages, ethnic origins, and modes of dress are sampled.
Similarly, a survey on morality carried out among adults leaving church on a Sunday morning, should be expected to reveal a different result to a survey carried out among adults leaving a night club in the early hours of a Sunday morning, and yet both could be honestly described as a survey of adults.
The willingness with which the general public accept the findings of statistics, and the difficulty in establishing the objectivity of otherwise of such findings, has long been a powerful weapon in the arsenal of propaganda used by politicians and by advertising firms. Research Statistics
Troodon was a dinosaur of the Cretaceous period. The only remains found of
Troodon have been a single tooth, which after much analysis was eventually established in 1987 to have come from a carnivore, probably about two and a half metres long, which if it was like similar dinosaurs walked on its hind legs and had slashing claws. Research Troodon
Charles Augustine de Coulomb was a French physicist. He was born in 1736 and died in 1806. He served as a military engineer for France in the West Indies, but retired to Blois, France, at the time of the French Revolution to continue research in magnetism, friction, and electricity. In 1777 he invented the torsionbalance for measuring the force of magnetic and electrical attraction. With this invention, Coulomb was able to formulate the principle, now known as Coulomb's law, governing the interaction between electric charges. In 1779 Coulomb published the treatise 'Théorie des machines simples' (Theory of Simple Machines), an analysis of friction in machinery. After the war ended Coulomb came out of retirement and assisted the new government in devising a metric system of weights and measures. The unit of electrical charge, the coulomb, is named after him. Research Charles Coulomb
Count Claude Louis Bethollet was a French chemist. He was born in 1748 and died in 1822. He studied medicine; became connected with Lavoisier and was admitted in 1780 a member of the Academy of Sciences at Paris. In 1794 he became professor in the normal school there. He followed Bonaparte to Egypt, and returned with him in 1799. Notwithstanding the various honours conferred on him by Napoleon he voted in 1814 for his dethronement, and was made a peer by Louis XVIII. His chief chemical discoveries were connected with the analysis of ammonia, the use of chlorine in bleaching, the artificial production of nitre, etc. His most important works were his Essai de Statique Chimique (1803), and the Methode de Nomenclature Ohimique (1787). Research Claude Berthollet
George Boole was an English mathematician and logician. He was born in 1815 at Lincoln and died in 1864. Educated at Lincoln, he opened a school in his twentieth year, and by private study gained such proficiency in mathematics that in 1849 he was appointed to the mathematical chair in Queen's College, Cork, where the rest of his life was spent. In 1857 the universities of Dublin and Oxford conferred on him the degrees of LL.D. and D.C.L. respectively. In mathematics he wrote on Differential Equations; General Method in Analysis; The Comparison of Transcendents, etc. In logic he wrote An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, and The Mathematical Analysis of Logic, a profound and original work, in which a symbolic language and notation were employed in regard to logical processes. Research George Boole
Leonid Nicolaievitch Andreev was a Russian novelist and dramatist. He was born in 1870 at Orel and died in 1919. While working as a journalist, reporting on war stories, he started writing short stories which rapidly gained popularity, and afterwards he wrote several plays. His writing is notable for its graphical accounts and analysis of madness. Research Leonid Andreev
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
Abbreviations
Research Aldebaran
