ST104: Statistical Laboratory WARWICK

Lecture 1
Samuel Touchard
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The Command Line
R is a scripting language, which means it can run commands as soon as you type them. This is
done at the prompt, represented by >. When you type a complete command at the prompt and
press enter, it runs, does any computation, and prints the answer.

> 10+5
[1] 15

If you start a command but don’t finish it, the prompt changes to a +, indicating that it
expects more:

> 10+5+
+
If this happens by mistake, press escape to cancel the command.

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Arithmetic Operators

Operator Description
+ addition
- soustraction
* multiplication
/ division
ˆ or ** exponentiation
x%%y modulus (x mod y)
x%/%y integer division

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Arithmetic
The symbols +, −, ∗, /,^, () do the usual things in the usual order.

> (15+10)/5
[1] 5
> (2^-2*4)+2
[1] 3
> 4^2 %% 5
[1] 1
> 4^2 %/% 5
[1] 3

Note: pi is a built-in constant in R.

> pi; pi*2

[1] 3.141593
[1] 6.283185

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Variables
You can define and set variables with = or < −. Typing an object’s name at the command line
causes it to be printed.

> x<-10 # set x to be 10

> x
[1] 10
> x/5
[1] 2
> y=2
> y
[1] 2
> x<-x+y # LHS set to old value of RHS
> x
[1] 12

Note: # is used to add comments. Everything that follows # in the same line will be ignored.

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Vectors
To create a vector, use c() separating entries by commas:

> x <- c(-1,0,1)

> x
[1] -1 0 1

You can also paste vectors together

> c(x, 5, x)
[1] -1 0 1 5 -1 0 1

and select particular elements.

> x[2] # second element of x

[1] 0

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Vector Arithmetics

Arithmetic operations of vectors are performed member-by-member.

> a <- c(1, 3, 5, 7) ; b <- c(1, 2, 4, 8)

> 5 * a
[1] 5 15 25 35
> a + b
[1] 2 5 9 15
> a * b
[1] 1 6 20 56 # not a dot product!

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Vector Arithmetics

Recycling Rule: If two vectors are of unequal length, the shorter one will be recycled in order
to match the longer vector.

> u <- c(10, 20, 30) ; v <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

> u + v
[1] 11 22 33 14 25 36 17 28 39

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Vector Arithmetics

Question: But what if you can’t divide the longest length by the shortest length?

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Vector Arithmetics

Question: But what if you can’t divide the longest length by the shortest length?

> u2 <- c(2, 4, 3)

> v2 <- c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
> u2 + v2
[1] 3 6 6 6 9 9 9 12
Warning message:
In u2 + v2 :
longer object length is not a multiple of shorter object length

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Scientific notation

With very large or small values (in absolute), R will use a scientific notation that may disrupt
people at first. Indeed, it uses scientific e notation where e tells you to multiple the base
number by 10 raised to the power shown.

> 365612186454331
[1] 3.656122e+14
> 0.00000000000468
[1] 4.68e-12
> 7.1*10^16
[1] 7.1e+16
> 2.5*10^{-12}
[1] 2.5e-12

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Exercise 1

Task
The gravitational force F (in Newtons) acting between two objects of masses m1 and m2 (kgs),
separated by a distance r (meters) between the centers of their masses, is:
m1 m2
F =G
r2
where G is the gravitational constant 6.674 × 10−11 SI.

Using R, calculate the gravitational force between the Sun (m1 = 1.989 × 1030 kg) and the
Earth (m2 = 5.972 × 1024 kg), separated by r = 147.1 million kms.

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Exercise 2

Task
In physics, the kinetic energy (KE) of an object is the energy that it possesses due to its
motion. It can be calculated as
1
KE = mv 2
2
with m the mass in kilograms, v the speed in meters per second, and the cinetic energy KE in
joules.
When beating the 100m world record in 2009, Usain Bolt reached the maximum speed of 44.72
km/h (37.58 km/h on average). We assume he weighted 94kgs.

Using R, calculate the kinetic energy developed by Usain Bolt that day.
Try and compare with your personal (estimated) value!

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