Dimensional Analysis (also called Factor-Label Method or the Unit Factor Method) is

a problem-solving method that uses the fact that any number or expression can be
multiplied by one without changing its value. It is a useful technique. The only danger
is that you may end up thinking that chemistry is simply a math problem - which it
definitely is not.

Unit factors may be made from any two terms that describe the same or equivalent
"amounts" of what we are interested in. For example, we know that

1 inch = 2.54 centimeters

Note: Unlike most English-Metric conversions, this one is exact. There
are exactly 2.540000000... centimeters in 1 inch.

We can make two unit factors from this information:

Now, we can solve some problems. Set up each problem by writing down what you
need to find with a question mark. Then set it equal to the information that you are
given. The problem is solved by multiplying the given data and its units by the
appropriate unit factors so that only the desired units are present at the end.

(1) How many centimeters are in 6.00 inches?

(2) Express 24.0 cm in inches.

You can also string many unit factors together.

(3) How many seconds are in 2.0 years?

Scientists generally work in metric units. Common prefixes used are the following:
 Prefix Abbreviation Meaning Example
mega- M 106 1 megameter (Mm) = 1 x 106 m
kilo- k 103 1 kilogram (kg) = 1 x 103 g
centi- c 10-2 1 centimeter (cm) = 1 x 10-2 m
milli- m 10-3 1 milligram (mg) = 1 x 10-3 g
micro- 10-6 1 micrometer ( g) = 1 x 10-6 g
nano- n 10-9 1 nanogram (ng) = 1 x 10-9 g

(4) Convert 50.0 mL to liters. (This is a very common conversion.)

(5) What is the density of mercury (13.6 g/cm3) in units of kg/m3?

We also can use dimensional analysis for solving problems.

(6) How many atoms of hydrogen can be found in 45 g of ammonia, NH3?

We will need three unit factors to do this calculation, derived from the following
information:

1. 1 mole of NH3 has a mass of 17 grams.

2. 1 mole of NH3 contains 6.02 x 1023 molecules of NH3.
3. 1 molecule of NH3 has 3 atoms of hydrogen in it.
There are many, many more examples in your textbook!

QUIZ:

Question
How many millimeters are present in 20.0 inches?
1
Question The volume of a wooden block is 6.30 in3. This is equivalent to how many cubic
2 centimeters?
Question A sample of calcium nitrate, Ca(NO3)2, with a formula weight of 164 g/mol, has
3 5.00 x 1027 atoms of oxygen. How many kilograms of Ca(NO3)2 are present?

Answers: (1) 508 mm (2) 103 cm3 (3) 227 kg

Example 1: The standard deviation of 100 W light bulbs whose life span follows a normal distribution is
given to be 120 hours and a half life of same is guaranteed to be 700 hours of under warranty. 100 bulbs
are selected at random from the lot whose half-life is determined to be 650 hours. If the significance level
is 0.01, then the lot should be rejected or not for not restricting to the guarantee?

Solution:

Assume the null and alternate hypothesis as below.

H0H0 : μμ ≥≥ 700

H1H1 : μ <μ < 700

Now, the limit of acceptance is to be calculated.

aa = 0.010.01; zaza = 2.332.33

Let us now determine the confidence interval.

(700 – 2.33 ×(700 – 2.33 × 120(sqrt100)120(sqrt100),∞),∞)

= (672.04672.04, ∞∞)

Here x′x′ = 650650

Therefore, the null hypothesis cannot be accepted with the given level of
significance.
Example 2: Suppose a coin is tossed for 50 times and we got 35 heads.
With a significance level of 0.1, determine if the coin is biased for heads. Show all calculations and rules.
Also, calculate the value of ‘p’ and interpret it.
Solution:

Assume the null and alternate hypothesis as below.

H0H0 : pp ≤≤ 0.5

H1H1 : p >p > 0.5

We will now require making use of the right-tailed z – test of proportions based
on the above hypothesis.

We are given that the level of significance is 0.10.1 that is αα = 0.10.1.

The critical value is set to be zczc = 1.281.28

Now the region of rejection for the null hypothesis is

z > zcz > zc = 1.281.28

Also, from the given information we can determine that

p^p^ = 35503550 = 0.70.7

Now, the score of z is given by

zz = (p^ – p)p(1 – p)n)√(p^ – p)p(1 – p)n)

⇒⇒ zz = (0.7 – 0.5)0.5(1 – 0.5)50)√(0.7 – 0.5)0.5(1 – 0.5)50)

⇒⇒ zz = 2.8282.828

Now for αα = 0.10.1, zczc = 1.281.28

Here, zz = 2.828 > zc2.828 > zc

Hence, the null hypothesis is rejected.

We compute the right-tailed value of pp.

pp = Pr (z > 2.828)Pr (z > 2.828) = 0.0240.024

Since the value of pp is less than the given significance value of 0.10.1, therefore the null hypothesis is
rejected. Therefore, we can say that the coin is biased for heads with enough evidence in hand at the
level of significance of 0.10.1.
Example 3: Choose the correct options for below.

1. A type II error is made only when

a. The null hypothesis has been rejected even being true.
b. The alternate hypothesis has been accepted even being false.
c. The null hypothesis has been accepted even being false.
d. The alternate hypothesis has been accepted being true.

2. A person has a theory that age of the managers on an average in a particular industry is more than 38.
Now he wants to prove it as well. What can be the null hypothesis in order to conduct a test of statistics
on this theory?
a. The mean population is greater than or equal to 38.
b. The mean population is exactly 38.
c. The mean population is greater than 38.
d. The mean population is less than or equal to 38.

Solution:

1. The correct solution in this one is (c) that is a type II error is made when the null hypothesis has been
accepted even if it is false.

2. The correct solution in this one is (d) that is null hypothesis, in this case, is that the population mean is
less than or equal to 38

One sided test

Statistics is a subject that is full of researches and experiments. In order to perform a research or survey,
firstly one needs to have adequate data from which the suitable sample is chosen. In many cases, the
statistical hypotheses are formed. Recall that the statistical hypotheses are the statements that are
assumed to be true. Null hypothesis is a statement which is adopted until it is proved wrong.

When it is found wrong, it is rejected and an alternative hypothesis is adopted. Usually, the
alternative hypothesis is just opposite to the null hypothesis. To find the authenticity of our
hypotheses, we are required to perform tests of significance which are known as statistical
significance tests. They can be mainly categorized into two : one sided tests and two-sided
tests.Whenever a statistical significance test is conducted (an ANOVA, a correlation, a regression or any
other type of test), it ends up getting a p-value in its result. The p-value is then compared with the null
hypothesis. If it is found statistically significant enough, then the null hypothesis is accepted, otherwise
rejected and an alternative hypothesis is accepted. Usually, when the data is symmetrically distributed on
the both sides of a benchmark value, a two-sided test is utilized. On the other hand, if lies on either side,
a one-sided test is adopted. In this page, we shall learn about one-sided test, its definition, when to use it
etc.
Two sided tests
The statistics is a special branch of mathematics. It studies about the collection, management,
observation, calculation and interpretation of the numerical data utilized in particular statistical survey or
research. The hypotheses play an important role in statistics.

In general, a hypothesis may be referred as an educated guess. The statistical hypothesis is a statement
that is said to be the proposed explanation for some phenomenon. The hypothesis which can be tested
through statistical methods for its validity is known as the statistical hypothesis. There are two types of
statistical hypotheses - null hypothesis and alternative hypothesis.

The null hypothesis is defined as a default position or a general statement which is supposed to
be true throughout the statistical experiment until some evidence indicates that it is false. The null
hypothesis is denoted by H00 which is pronounced as H-null or H-nought or H-zero. On the other hand,
the alternative hypothesis is the statement, accepted when there is a sufficient evidence that the null
hypothesis is false. It is denoted by Haa or H11.
The probability for the rejection of null hypothesis to be true is said to be the significance level. The
concept of statistical significance is a basic concept in hypothesis testing. The statistical significance of
the result is attained in case of p-value (the probability of an effect provided that the null hypothesis is
true) being less than significance level (the probability of rejecting null provided that it is true). In statistical
testing, generally the significance level is is set to 5% or 0.05.

The knowledge of all the above terms is essential in order to understand the concept of statistical tests.
We, basically, come across with two types of statistical tests. One-sided and two-sided. In the article
below, we shall go ahead and learn about the two-sided tests in detail. The two-sided test is also known
as the two-tailed test, since it is applicable only when there are two tails in the distribution, most
commonly in case of normal distribution.

Two-sided tests are used when it is theoretically possible to distribute the deviations of estimated

parameter in both the directions from our assumed benchmark value. The two-sided test allocates

half of the significance level for the testing of significance in one direction and half of it to test the

significance in other direction.

For instance: If we choose the significance level αα of 0.05, then two-sided test actually allots 0.025 for
the testing of statistical significance of either side of the distribution.

The two-sided test is kind of statistical test that tests or checks whether or not the given sample is either
bigger or smaller than a particular range of values. In this test, if the testing sample lies in any of the
critical areas, then null hypothesis is rejected and alternative hypothesis is accepted. Have a look at the
following diagram of normal distribution :
The shaded region indicates the rejection of null hypothesis since the values here tend towards zero very
fast. The two-sided test is also known as nondirectional test.

Explanation
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When we use a two-tailed test, we test significance of relationship in both the directions, not the direction
of relationship which is hypothesized. There are few hypotheses which only predict that a particular value
would be different from some other, not predicting which value would be higher. The two-tailed tests are
used for such hypotheses testing since the test statistic in any of the tail of distribution causes rejection of
null hypothesis.

For instance: If, for a sample, one wants compare the mean with some given value (say a), then the null
hypothesis could be "the mean is equal to a". The two-sided test would check both the conditions whether
the mean is significantly smaller than the value a and whether it is significantly bigger than a. If our test
statistic lies either in upper 2.5% or in lower 2.5%, then the mean is said to be significantly different from
the value "a". It gives a p-value which is less than 0.05.
Example
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An example of using a two-sided test is illustrated below:

In a candy production unit, the requirement is to have around 100 candies in each packet. The null
hypothesis would be "number of candies per packet = 100". A margin of 10 candies per packet is allowed,
i.e. the accepted number of candies could be between 95 to 105 per packet.

Since it is expensive as well as tiresome to check each and every packet for the number of candies, the
production unit just picks up random samples and tests if the average number of candies are more than
105 or less than 95 with an assumed level of significance. If yes, then it rejects the null hypothesis.

Level of significance
Statistics is a special branch of mathematics. It deals with gathering, presenting, analyzing, organizing
and interpreting the data which is usually numerical. The statistics is not made for spectators. In order to
understand how it is dealt, one should go through it thoroughly and work out several examples.
Statistics is applied to many industrial, scientific, social and economical areas. While a researcher
performs a research, a hypothesis has to be set which is known as null hypothesis.

This hypothesis is needed to be tested via pre defined statistical tests. This process is termed
as statistical hypothesis testing. Statistical significance is an important terminology that is quite
commonly used in statistics.

It determines whether where the null hypothesis is supposed to be accepted or rejected. It is necessary
to identify if the result is statistically significant for the null hypothesis to be false or rejected i.e. unlikely to
occur by chance alone.

The level of significance is the measurement of the statistical significance. In this page, we are going to
learn about the concept of level of significance and other terms related to this concept

Definition
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In common language, the word "significance" refers to something that is extremely useful and important. But
in statistics, "significance" means "not by chance" or "probably true". We can say that if
a statistician states that some result is "highly significant", then he mean by say that it might be very
probably true. This does not mean that the result is highly important, but it indicates that it is highly
probable.

In statistical researches, the statistical significance test removes the possibility of a results to be arose by
chance. This allows the rejection of null hypothesis (say H 00). The level of significance for a statistical
hypothesis test is defined as the fixed probability of wrong rejection of null hypothesis when if in fact it is
true. The significance level is said to be the probability of type I error and is preset by the researcher with the
consequences of error. We may say that we have to get the level of significance smallest possible for
the protection of null hypothesis. It prevents the researcher from making false results inadvertently.

A significance test is a method which is utilized by the investigators in order to determine if the null
hypothesis is rejected or not, in the favor of alternative hypothesis. In this test, the
statistician compares the observed results with theoretical results. The significance tests evaluates if
there is some relationship between given variables or the observed results the produced purely
by chance.
Symbol
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Generally, the level of significance is denoted by the Greek symbol αα (alpha).

Significance Level = p (type I error) = αα

The values or the observations are less likely when they farther than the mean or when the tail is longer.

The results are at times written as "significant at x%".

 For Example: The value significant at 5% refers that p-value is less that 0.05 or p < 0.05.

Similarly, significant at 1% means that the p-value is lesser than 0.01.

The level of significance is generally chosen at 0.05 or 5%. When the p-value is low, it means that the
observed values are significantly different from the population value that were hypothesised in
the beginning. The p-value is said to be more significant, if it is as lower as possible. Also, the result
would be highly significant, if the p-value is very less. But, most commonly, p-values less than just 0.05
are known as significant, since getting a p value less than 0.05 is quite a less common practice.
Steps
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In order to measure the level of statistical significance of the result, the investigator needs to first
calculate the p value. It is defined as the probability of noticing an effect which gives that the null
hypothesis is true.

When the p value is less than the level of significance ( αα), null hypothesis is rejected. If the p-value so
observed is not less than the significance level αα, then theoretically null hypothesis is accepted. But
practically, we often increase the size of the sample size and check if we reach at the significance level.
p-Value
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The p-value of a given sample is defined as the probability of getting an extreme result or an observed
sample result in the case that the null hypothesis is in fact true. When the p-value is quite low, such that
lesser than or equal to a chosen value, known as the level of significance which is usually 5% or 1%, it is
said that observed data is inconsistent for our assumption that given null hypothesis holds. Therefore,
the hypothesis is rejected and another hypothesis called alternative hypothesis is accepted and assumed
to be true.

General interpretation of p values based upon the significance level of 10%, is illustrated below:

1) If p > 0.1, then there will be no presumption for the null hypothesis

2) If p > 0.05 and p ≤≤ 0.1, it means that there will be a low presumption for the null hypothesis.

3) If p > 0.01 and p ≤≤ 0.05, then there must be a strong presumption about the null hypothesis.

4) If p ≤≤ 0.01, then a very strong presumption about the null hypothesis is indicated.
For Example: If we obtain a p-value equal to 0.03, then it means that there are just 3% chances of
getting a difference larger than that in our research, provided that that the null hypothesis holds. Now, we
need to determine if this result is statistically significant enough.

We know that if the chances are 5% or less than that, then the null hypothesis is true and we will tend to
reject our null hypothesis and accept alternative hypothesis. Here, in this case, the chances are 0.03 i.e.
3% (less than 5%) which eventually means that we will reject our null hypothesis and will accept
alternative hypothesis. We can say that the obtained result is too frequent to be confident.

Null
Statistics, an important mathematical subject, deals with the study of surveys and researches
on numerical data. In these statistical researches, we have to define the hypotheses.

There are mainly two types of statistical hypotheses - null and alternative. An alternative hypothesis
denotes the observations influenced by a non random cause. It is notified by H11 or Haa.The null hypothesis is
the hypothesis which the sample observation result from chance. It is denoted by H00. A null hypothesis is
said to be a statement which a researcher wants want to test or examine. This is a defined as the things similar
to one another or similar to some theoretical expectation.

For Instance: if one has to measure the foot size female and male chickens. In this case, the null hypothesis
could be set as "average male foot size is equal to average female foot size in chickens.

In this article, we shall go ahead and learn about the definition of null hypothesis and concepts related to
its principle, its types and rejection of null hypothesis.

efinition
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In statistics, the word "'null' is utilized to refer to common view of something, while the alternative hypothesis is
what the researcher really thinks is the cause of a phenomenon.
The null hypothesis is defined a hypothesis which has particularly no specific significance in an observation
set used in some research in statistics.

Null hypothesis shows that there is no variation between the variables. This hypothesis is supposed to be
true until it is nullified by some statistical evidence and an alternative hypothesis takes place.
In other words, null hypothesis is a kind of hypothesis that explains about population parameter and
whose purpose is to test its validity in the light of given experimental data. The null hypothesis is either
rejected or not rejected in terms of its viable possibility depending on the data. It assumes that if some
difference or significance is seen in the data, then it is due to chance. The researcher usually tries to
reject disprove or nullify the null hypothesis.
For Instance: If we have to find if a coin is balanced and fair, then the null hypothesis could be that half
of the tosses result in tails and half result is heads. This hypothesis can be expressed symbolically as:
H00 : p = 0.5

Also, while performing the actual experiment, suppose the coin is flipped 50 times which results in 30
heads and 20 tails. With this result, we are inclined to reject the given null hypothesis. Thus, we may
reach at the result that probably the coin is unbalanced and unfair.

In spite of the importance of null hypothesis, many surveyer neglect the null hypothesis while
hypothesis testing. This quite a bad practice and increase the chances of adverse effects.
Principle
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The principle for null hypothesis testing is collecting the data and determining the chances for a given
data set during the study on some random sample, assuming that the null hypothesis is true.
This hypothesis assumes that would not be any relation between variables of the population from which
our sample is taken. If the given set of observations is unrelated to the null hypothesis, the researcher
tends to reject it and conclude that the hypothesis is probably false.In the case that the given data
does not oppose the assumed null hypothesis, then the conclusion would be quite weaker, saying that the
data set gives no strong evidence against null hypothesis or the data gives insufficient evidences to reach
to some conclusion.
Types
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The different types of null hypothesis are as follows:

Simple hypothesis:

The simple hypothesis completely specifies the population distribution. In this hypothesis, the

sampling distribution would be the function of sample size only.

Composite hypothesis:

The composite hypothesis is one that does not completely specify the given population distribution.

Exact hypothesis:

This is the type of hypothesis which defines an exact value of parameter value. For instance

- μμ = 80.

Inexact hypothesis:

An inexact hypothesis is one does not specify exact value, instead of this it denotes an interval or

range.

For Example:

μμ < 85 and 70 < mumu < 100

Rejection of Null Hypothesis

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The null hypotheses are rejected too. When a null hypothesis is rejected, it means that the research could
be invalid. That is why, in science, a battery of inductive and deductive processes is used in order to
make sure that there is no flaw in our hypothesis. Many researchers do neglect the null hypothesis as
they assume it as merely an opposite of the alternative hypothesis. But still, it is always better practice to
create a null hypothesis and test it.

Actually, the utmost goal of a researcher is not the rejection of null hypothesis. It is quite evident that
a perfect statistical model is always associated with the failure to reject its null hypothesis. The
experiment should be adjusted until the null fails to reject.

For Example: if a drug reduces the chance of cardiac stroke, then the null hypotheses could be "the drug
does not reduce the chances of cardiac stroke". The hypothesis testing involves the administration of drug to
the people in the form of a controlled experiment. If the survey indicates the significant change in people,
then the null hypothesis is rejected.
Choice
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The choice of null hypothesis is also very important which is totally based on previous experiences
and inconsistent advices. Ideally, for a research, many null hypotheses are to be assumed and many
tests should be performed for each one of them. This choice can be more complicated based upon the
diversity of objectives and the variety of applications.

Usually, in common applications, the formulation of test hypothesis is quite traditional. The choice of the
null hypothesis is not automated, but the calculations and testing may be automated.

The main limitation for the choice of null hypothesis is that the hypotheses suggested by the data is based on
reasoning which proves nothing. i.e. if some hypothesis provides a summary for a data set, then there would
be no value in the testing of hypothesis on that particular data set.
For Instance: During the study of previous year weather reports, it was found that rain falled usually on
weekends. But it will be valid only to test that null hypothesis for the weather reports of some other year.