| Abstract: | Abstract The experimental procedure of determining the structure of a liquid by diffraction techniques is reformulated herein as a stochastic experiment subject to the data analysis formalism of statistical spectral analysis. Observed in such an experiment are averaged local microscopic fluctuations from the bulk density. The intensity function then represents a stochastic spectrum and it becomes necessary to statistically estimate a minimum bias, minimum variance covariance function which is the net radial distribution function. A low-pass tapered data window produces such an optimum estimate. |
