What is the average number of legs

This middle point is the median. Sorting the numbers of children into order, they are 0, 2, 2, 3, and 4. The one right in the middle is 2, so that is the median.

In this case, the median and mode are the same, but the mean is 2. Though the mean is the most commonly used sort of average, the median is also in common use, and it can be important to know which is being used. Half of all employees earned less than the median because the median is the pay level that half of employees earn less than!

A few lucky individuals earn far, far more than that. If someone starts talking about averages, you should be sure to find out what sort of average they are using.

Editor's note: Apologies for a typo which originally gave the mean figure in ninth paragraph as 2. We invite you to discuss this subject, but remember this is a public forum.

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Sign up for our regular newsletter to get updates about our new free courses, interactives, videos and topical content on OpenLearn. The mass of my testicles is twice as much as the average American. Nov 1, 61, 10 OCGuy Lifer. Jul 12, 27, 26 Great thread. Leros said:. Don't forget babies and children, and the possibility that I have big balls. Pics: This thread needs them. Mosh is up first. Jul 15, 80, 12, You must log in or register to reply here. Post thread. CPUs and Overclocking.

Graphics Cards. AnandTech is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Visit our corporate site. All rights reserved. England and Wales company registration number Top Bottom. This is because they confuse mean and median.

And even among people who understand the difference between mean and median, there is a strong tendency to implicitly assume symmetry.

And when distributions are symmetric, the mean and the median are the same. In the same example, with the legs, the median is 2. In a similar context, a statistics professor I once had pointed out a seeming impossibility. Another interesting related statistical example is comparing CDC cancer rates for deaths due to prostate, breast, and colorectal cancer in the US. Among men, prostate cancer causes more deaths per capita Among women, breast cancer causes more deaths But in the whole population, colorectal cancer causes more deaths per capita The punch line of an Aggie joke nearly always has something to do with an Aggie being stupid.

In the United States, there are approximately 1. It is estimated that one out of every people in the U. These statistics are interesting. You can cut off your left arm twice? Add a comment. Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Version labels for answers. Related