Mathematicians and statisticians will have found this book very elementary, whilst completely non-mathematically and non-statistically oriented biologists will probably have found some of this a little heavy going. Nevertheless, it was written for the latter group and I hope that it proves useful even if you have found it heavy going.

Flow cytometry instrumentation is becoming not only increasingly sophisticated but also more generally available, which enables more of us to perform more experiments with increasing sophistication. Analysis and interpretation of the data is the most important single aspect in flow cytometry, for without it the data remain meaningless. Mathematics and statistics are the tools required for that analysis and interpretation; non-mathematically and non-statistically oriented biologists increasingly will have recourse to these disciplines, into which they must acquire at least some insight. If this book helps a single person to obtain such insight then I will regard the effort involved in writing it as worthwhile.

Mathematics and statistics are also an integral part of all our lives in ways we might be unaware of and hence cannot appreciate. As an illustration I'll return to the undergarment problem mentioned at the outset (I hadn't forgotten). The various measurements were resolved into four basic categories, which can be summarised as circumference, vertical displacement, separation and volume. Circumference was well correlated with vertical displacement, r ⋍ 0.8.