Robust estimation based on energy minimization principles

It is argued that the tendency of nature to minimize energy may be used as a unifying basis for all robust estimators. Robustness is defined and discu ssed based on mechanical rather than empirical and abstract tools. This mec hanical view of robustness is then extended to design new and useful robust data editors that suppress the outlying content of the contaminated observ ations. These editors are applied to edit samples of sea-surface heights, g ravity observations and reduced global positioning system baselines.