Real-Life Math
People fall asleep while driving their cars. They have difficulty
functioning in the morning. They can't fall asleep at night.
Many things
can affect sleep. Watching television before bed may make it more difficult
to doze off. Teenagers often find it hard to drag themselves out of bed in
the morning. Are they just lazy? Probably not. Recently, scientists have argued
that because of a teenager's hormonal and internal rhythm changes, they may
just need more sleep.
Many people lead such busy lives that they don't
give themselves enough time for sleep. So, just how important is sleep to
our health? And how much do people need to function at their optimum level?
You
are a biostatistician designing a number of sleep experiments. After you collect
the data, you will analyze the numbers to see what you can find.
"You
have to love math," says Sarah Fowler, a biostatistician. "We analyze data,
and much of what we do uses mathematical theories of probability."
How
much sleep are people getting on average? You have 5 patients: Sam, Joe, Barry,
Tim and Mike. This is how much sleep they got last night:
Sam:
6 hours
Joe: 5 hours
Barry: 9 hours
Tim: 7 hours
Mike: 8 hours
1.
What was the average amount of sleep that this group of men got?
2.
If it is recommended that an adult get 8 hours of sleep each night, is this
group getting enough sleep on average?