One of Don's offerings suggested a measurement with an upper limit. Certain binary alloys (eutectic composition alloys, for those who care) melt (go liquid, or go solid) at a specific temperature, even if the alloy composition is not exactly on the "eutectic." tin-lead electrical solder is an example.
If a small amount of a third element is added, the melting point is depressed (usually) slightly. Where the application requires a specific melting point, we work to reduce contamination. Samples will have a melting point which has an upper limit, the eutectic melting point, with a left skewed distribution. fusible link electrical overload relays make use of such alloys, and it is necessary to watch their construction carefully to minimize a third element, because said third element is a necessary part of the construction. Subtle & arcane? Yes, but it pops up a good deal in the trade. I did a designed experiment one time to control the amount of said thrid element, using the melting point as the response. Doing a transform on the response improved the prediction. Jay Stan Brown wrote: > Today in class we looked at shapes of distributions. I realized that > I could think of lots of examples of symmetric distributions and of > distributions that are skewed right, but I went blank trying to > think of a straightforward real-life example of a distribution that > is skewed left. > > Anyone care to contribute the obvious answer that I can't think of? > > -- > Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA > http://OakRoadSystems.com/ > "What in heaven's name brought you to Casablanca?" > "My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters." > "The waters? What waters? We're in the desert." > "I was misinformed." > . > . > ================================================================= > Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the > problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: > . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . > ================================================================= -- Jay Warner Principal Scientist Warner Consulting, Inc. 4444 North Green Bay Road Racine, WI 53404-1216 USA Ph: (262) 634-9100 FAX: (262) 681-1133 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] web: http://www.a2q.com The A2Q Method (tm) -- What do you want to improve today? . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
