Once upon a time, there was a student of statistics who, after completing his first year, went for industrial training to a near by leather goods manufacturing company. A day before joining the company, he was wondering of kind of statistics application that company will be using, which he will be required to learn and how he as individual can contribute in the process he is going to join, giving his first exposure to cooperate the right start.
Wondering on what kind of analysis he can apply in a leather manufacturing company, he went to his college and expressed his dilemma, with his professor. The professor thought for a while on his student's problem and then asked him “what do you require to apply any statistical analysis?” The boy quickly answered “data”. “But what is data?” asked professor. “Data is systematically arranged information for a set of parameters/ variables represented in numeric, alpha numeric or string format” came the response from student. The professor then said “the parameters or variable are just notation used as by user’s requirements, right?” The student in agreement said “yes”. “So what remains in data is the information represented in numeric, alpha numeric or string.” The student again agreed and said “yes that what forms data”. The professor continued “but then numeric, alpha numeric or string are only different format of data representation , and I believe that we can transformed and present everything only in numeric format, what do you think?” asked the professor again. The student was now pushed to think of something he has not yet thought about, but after some thinking he again agreed with his professor and said “yes we can transform all information in numbers”. The professor then asked his last question “tell me one thing now which you can not represent in numbers?” The student was further pushed in his thoughts on imagining numbers. He stood there and thought for the ten minutes, he thought from the distance between stars to the time taken by light to reach earth, from the oceans to countries, from human body to bacteria, from money to weapons, from desires to emotions, everything formed the picture of number and just numbers in his mind. He replied “I don’t know. It seems that I can transform all the information in numbers today”.
The professor then gave his last teaching for the day, he said “you told me that you need only data, which we have seen is nothing but some numbers, to apply any statistical analysis and now you are telling me that you can transform and represent everything in numbers. So are you telling me that you can apply statistical analysis on everything?”
The student was once again pushed in his thoughts but this time he also thought that is it a trap and he is going to hear something unexpected from the professor. But he didn’t had much options, whatever his mind was thinking were now showing them as numbers and he was able to think of random analysis techniques, from basic to advance, he can use on them. Trusting his limitation of knowledge and his believe in learning, which brought him to his professor, he prepared himself for the worst and said “yes I can apply statistics on everything.”
There was a sudden moment of silence in the room. The student was feeling a millions of particles jumping inside his stomach and to make thing worse for him; his mind was actually able to count the jumps, their timings, etc. and has already thought of a time series model which can fit on it.
The professor then asked the student again “so what were you asking me, what analysis you can apply at a manufacturing company?” He was looking into the eyes of students as if expecting the answer from him for his own question.
The student, by the time, was hit by the lighting which professor wanted to pass on to him. He was imaging all kinds of data which he will get at the company and what all analysis he will do. With a big smile he replied “no I know what analysis I will do there”.
The student came out of his professor’s room happily. But the lesson which professor was teaching him was not finished yet. As he was walking down towards his hostel, dreaming of what all he can represent in numbers and thus analyze them, he was struck by the same question asked by his professor “tell me one thing which can not be transformed and represented in numbers”.
The student went on for his training, competed his masters in statistics and is been working on statistical analysis implementation since last four years. But his search for the answer to his professor is still on.
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