Correlation of Bivariate Random Data

units u

3

tens t

0

hundreds h

0

r = -0.855355

This Demonstration constructs two lists of random numbers of length

100h+10t+u

and calculates the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient

r

as if the lists were bivariate data. For a random sample such as this, the coefficient is expected to be close to zero, with no correlation. As you increase the sample size with the sliders, the coefficient (shown with the green dot) fluctuates less and less as it floats over zero.