empirical frequency

[ks94]

HI 

Please what's empirical frequency and how calculate it ? 

thanks 

[Ksharp]

Try PROC FREQ .

And calling @Rick_SAS 

[Rick_SAS]

As KSharp says, the empirical frequency is what you observe. If you open a pack of Plain M&Ms, you might find

Red: 7

Orange: 8

Yellow: 7

Green: 9

Blue: 6

Brown: 7

Those numbers are the empirical frequencies for each color. These might be different than the expected frequencies. For example, in the US more blue M&M&s are produced than green, but that's not what you observed. 

You can not only use PROC FREQ to tabulate the counts for each category, you can use it to test whether an observed set of frequencies is likely to be seen in a random sample from a population with known distribution. For this kind of hypothesis testing on the M&M data, see this article.

[ks94]

Hi 

what formula is used to get the above empirical frequencies , knowing that we have the following quantities of colors:

Red     108
Orange  133
Yellow  103
Green   139
Blue    133
Brown    96

Thanks 

[Rick_SAS · Accepted solution]

The empirical frequencies are the numbers next to each color: 108, 133, etc.

Perhaps you meant to say "empirical proportions"? If so, add up all the frequencies:

S = 108 + 133 + 103 + 139 + 133 + 96 = 712

and divide the empirical frequencies by the total. The empirical proportions are 

108 / 712 = 0.15

133 / 712 = 0.19

...

96 / 712 = 0.13