Re: curve fitting -- Excel Accuracy
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg41112] Re: [mg40809] curve fitting -- Excel Accuracy
- From: Ian Brooks <ianbrooks at earthlink.net>
- Date: Sat, 3 May 2003 03:29:25 -0400 (EDT)
- References: <200304221043.GAA29936@smc.vnet.net> <200304221043.GAA29936@smc.vnet.net>
- Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com
A number of people wrote and asked for the details of the paper I referred to about Excel's accuracy. It is "On the Accuracy of Statistical Procedures in Microsoft EXCEL 97" (with Berry Wilson), Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 31(1), 27-37, 1999 There is a new paper that I have not yet read "On the Accuracy of Statistical Procedures in Microsoft Excel 2000 and Excel XP" (with Berry Wilson), Computational Statistics and Data Analysis 40(4), 713-721, 2002 I understand there are some differences between the Excel versions, but that the underlying problems have not been addressed and Excel XP is not significantly different than 97. Ian >>Forget comparisons with Excel. If you are trying to do anything remotely >>non-trivial Excel is almost certainly giving you garbage. If you think I >>am exaggerating, take a look at the papers by Bruce McCullough who ran >>the NIST (National Institutes of Standards and Technology) statistics >>benchmark suite through Excel. The results are appalling, but not >>surprising. I don't have the paper to hand, but from memory of the 26 >>non-linear curve fitting problems posed Excel gave COMPLETELY wrong >>answers to 21 of them!!! By completely wrong, I mean that where the >>benchmark value is something like 0.6 Excel gave the answer as 13! >> >>If you need the reference I will try to dig it out. >> >>Ian