An Introduction to Error Analysis: The Study of Uncertainties in Physical Measurements

One of my favorite textbooks while getting my Physics degree. It was used as a supplement for my upper division lab class where we did things like measure the speed of light and calculate the e/m ratio for the electron.

Very clear, very insightful, and just a nice little treasure to have. Studying the propagation of errors was an eye-opener.

If you work at all with physical data, this book is a must. Written clearly and concisely, with examples and sample problems, Introduction to Error Analysis contains everything you need to properly quantify the robustness of your data. Taylor covers error propagation, least-squares fitting, correlation & covariance and statistical distributions and their properties. It is less than you will find in a weightier statistics textbook, but honestly, if your data requires higher level statistical analysis that what is provided in this book, you either need to seriously rethink your experiment or else you aren't actually doing science.

Clear introduction to "statistics" for physical scientists. Used for a one quarter class.

Caveat on my rating: we did not use the problems from the book except in very rare cases, so my rating does not include any experience with those.

I don't actually own this book...I've only included it because it's easily the best book cover of all time.