Fundamental Scaling Relations Among Galaxies in the Local Universe

This thesis devises a statistical method to analyse the measurable properties of galaxies. The main emphasis of the thesis is to use this method in evaluating the accuracy and precision of the two fundamental, yet hardest to measure, quantities: masses and distances of galaxies. These measurements heavily rely on our assumptions about how the Universe works, therefore, this study contributes to our greater understanding of the Universe by providing new techniques to rigorously test these assumptions and the physics behind them.