Regarding the bomb plot at the very bottom. Examining the number of bombs dropped in each square and comparing it to the Poisson distribution, it appears that the distribution of the bombs is random.
But looking at the plot on the map, it appears that the higher incidence of bombs is focused on a specific region. The Poisson distribution doesn't account for the fact that a lot of the squares with a high incidence of bombs are adjacent to each other. From my layman's understanding, it appears that the bombs were in fact targeted on a specific area, but that there was a random offset from this area regarding where the bombs actually landed. Because of this, you'd see randomness in the distribution. But the distribution of bombs wasn't really perfectly random.
Is the author deliberately avoiding this point, or is there something I've misunderstood?
The poisson analysis is only done on a subset of the area thats in the 3d plots: "Clarke's analysis was focused on the central area of higher density here and with finer geographic coordinates. Within that area his analysis found no evidence of clustering that cannot be accounted for by a Poisson process."
Yes, it could have been a bit more clear in how they "weren't being aimed". Obviously the Germans did not just point them straight up and light them off, hoping for the best. What this really demonstrated was something more like where the noise floor for the bomb distribution was. They could hit "London" but they couldn't hit any particular place in it. Very important for the military to know that information.
The responses below are correct - the analysis in the article is about a smaller region of London, that essentially falls inside the large peak in the plot. I wasn't deliberately avoiding this point, it's just that the article was getting long and I wasn't sure how much detail to keep in. I've made a correction to the post to alleviate this confusion. And thanks for pointing this out.
Comments
Regarding the bomb plot at the very bottom. Examining the number of bombs dropped in each square and comparing it to the Poisson distribution, it appears that the distribution of the bombs is random.
But looking at the plot on the map, it appears that the higher incidence of bombs is focused on a specific region. The Poisson distribution doesn't account for the fact that a lot of the squares with a high incidence of bombs are adjacent to each other. From my layman's understanding, it appears that the bombs were in fact targeted on a specific area, but that there was a random offset from this area regarding where the bombs actually landed. Because of this, you'd see randomness in the distribution. But the distribution of bombs wasn't really perfectly random.
Is the author deliberately avoiding this point, or is there something I've misunderstood?
If you read the linked post its clearer whats going on: http://madvis.blogspot.ie/2010/09/flying-bombs-on-london-sum...
The poisson analysis is only done on a subset of the area thats in the 3d plots: "Clarke's analysis was focused on the central area of higher density here and with finer geographic coordinates. Within that area his analysis found no evidence of clustering that cannot be accounted for by a Poisson process."
Yes, it could have been a bit more clear in how they "weren't being aimed". Obviously the Germans did not just point them straight up and light them off, hoping for the best. What this really demonstrated was something more like where the noise floor for the bomb distribution was. They could hit "London" but they couldn't hit any particular place in it. Very important for the military to know that information.
The responses below are correct - the analysis in the article is about a smaller region of London, that essentially falls inside the large peak in the plot. I wasn't deliberately avoiding this point, it's just that the article was getting long and I wasn't sure how much detail to keep in. I've made a correction to the post to alleviate this confusion. And thanks for pointing this out.
I believe the table at the end deals with a subsection of the 3d graph, but I could be wrong.