Talk:Arithmetic mean

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The YT video (2.47 minutes explains):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RLRMGFBZBs&feature=youtu.be — Preceding unsigned comment added by 197.79.5.24 (talk) 07:18, 7 April 2015 (UTC)Reply

@197.79.5.24 @2555588533353533533313141535

Usuário(a):Aleph Bot/Errosidiiififiifofd 189.50.49.230 (talk) 03:13, 15 November 2023 (UTC)Reply

The following applet explains what your professors of mythmatics never understood:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B-mOEooW03iLQjN3WnVKLURjOFE&authuser=0

Geogebra applet contains no viruses or malware of any kind.

The section on angles is absolute rubbish.

To learn more about me, google john gabriel new calculus. 197.79.5.150 (talk) 07:31, 24 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Hi, John Gabriel. 84.216.157.87 (talk) 09:25, 10 September 2023 (UTC)Reply

I removed this:

(When used as a noun, the word "arithmetic" is pronounced with the accent on the second syllable, but when used in the present sense, as an adjective, the accent is on the third syllable: "arithMETic".)

This just seems inappropriate to me, and even condescending, but if anybody else wants to put it back, feel free.

I put it back, but at the end.

An automated Wikipedia link suggester has some possible wiki link suggestions for the Arithmetic_mean article:

• Can link horizontal bar: ...of a population. We use the name of the variable, X, with a horizontal bar over it as the symbol ("X bar") for a sample mean. Both are...
• Can link Redmond, Washington: ...]]s. For instance, reporting the "average" annual income in Redmond, Washington as the arithmetic mean of all annual incomes would yield a ...

Additionally, there are some other articles which may be able to linked to this one (also known as "backlinks"):

• In Cauchy distribution, can backlink sample mean: ...riables, each with a standard Cauchy distribution, then the sample mean (''X''₁ + ... + ''X''_''n'')/''n'' has...
• In Skewness, can backlink sample mean: ...re σ is the sample standard deviation and μ is the sample mean....
• In Lexington, Kentucky, can backlink mean average: ...wspaper: [[Lexington Herald-Leader]] === Climate === The mean average temperature in Lexington is 54.9 °F (13 °C). Annual precipi...
• In PILOT, can backlink arithmetic mean: ...:''' Compute and assign numeric value. Example: R:Assign arithmetic mean of #X and #Y to #AM...
• In Log-normal distribution, can backlink arithmetic mean: ...e used to estimate confidence intervals akin to the way the arithmetic mean and...
• In Anomaly time series, can backlink arithmetic mean: ...cycle of some variable is to be subtracted. Instead of the arithmetic mean, other indicators of [[locality]] may also be used, such as...
• In Errors and residuals in statistics, can backlink sample mean: ...  :<math>X_1, \dots, X_n\sim N( u,\sigma^2)</math> and the sample mean is a random variable distributed thus:...
• In Cochran's theorem, can backlink sample mean: ... and 1 degree of freedom respectively. This shows that the sample mean and sample variance are independent; also...
• In Ancillary statistic, can backlink sample mean: ...<math>\overline{X}_n=(X_1+\,\cdots\,+X_n)/n</math> :be the sample mean. The [[random variable]]...

Notes: The article text has not been changed in any way; Some of these suggestions may be wrong, some may be right.
Feedback: I like it, I hate it, Please don't link to — LinkBot 11:27, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I took care of them! --ZeroOne 18:39, 1 Dec 2004 (UTC)

All well and good, but links, or back-links, within Wikipedia should not be a substitute for good, clear descriptions in the article that the average reader can grasp. 208.54.86.231 (talk) 12:25, 13 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Is there any simple (i.e. not summation) way to denote a mean of a, b, and c within an expression? The best I know of is: average (a,b,c), which doesn’t even seem half-decent. Would µ or x̅ be used in place of “'average”? (Should µ be italicized in the article?) —Frungi 07:38, 11 February 2006 (UTC)Reply

I have been looking for information on this, but I can't find anything to back it up. I once read another issue w/ arithmetic mean is that you get a false sense of resolution in your measurements. For example, if I am measuring temperature over 10 days and each day I can only measure to the nearest degree (meaning 45 degrees or 46 degrees), then it is possible with a data set of (43, 46, 46, 47, 50, 54, 52, 51, 50, 49) to end up with an average temperature of 48.8, making it seem that I can measure with that level of accuracy, which isn't true. While not a real issue with this case, it can be problematic within the science realm. --ronb 20:33, 7 Feb 2007 (UTC)

Ronb, I think you are referring to Significant_figures or Propagation_of_uncertainty — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.115.87.78 (talk) 01:44, 22 April 2014 (UTC)Reply

Do you guys think maybe this section is a bit cluttered and could stand a small cleanup? --ronb 20:34, 7 Feb 2007 (UTC)

Empirical mean redirects here, but the term is not referenced in this page. Is it just a synonym for "Arithmetic mean"? If so, that should be stated. Hv 13:57, 17 February 2007 (UTC)Reply

I came to this talk page with exactly the same issue as Hv but 7 months later.—PaulTanenbaum 12:49, 27 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

See empirical measure for explanation what empirical mean means. (Igny 14:35, 27 September 2007 (UTC))Reply

An empirical mean is the mean of an empirical distribution, and is therefore the same thing as a sample mean. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:49, 14 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

...for now I've redirectd empirical mean to sample mean and sample covariance. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:55, 14 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

i don't think "sample mean" should redirect here... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.183.135.40 (talk) 01:59, 18 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

The whole section about calling a numerical average (or arithmetic mean or whatever you want to call it) an "average" being WRONG WRONG BAD is completely POV. Just because you personally don't call it that, doesn't mean it isn't in use. Webster backs me up, and so does dictionary.com, see definition nunber 2 in both. If you want to be a linguistic prescriptivist, keep it out of wikipedia mabye? If it doesn't change in a few days, I guess I'll have a crack at fixing it. Thanks all. 219.78.90.231 (talk) 09:26, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

You were quite right there. This text was added by in a series of edits on 7–8 December by a user who hasn't made any edits since then. I've altered it to something shorter and more neutral but I'm happy for that to be edited further. I've removed the POV tag. I've also removed the sentence about skewness from the lead of the article as it was distracting and out of place. Qwfp (talk) 10:13, 10 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

The article defines the mean in terms of "sample space ${\displaystyle \{x_{1},\ldots ,x_{n}\}}$". I don't see the motivation for using set notation here, and it seems sort of confusing; it tempts one into thinking that maybe a given number cannot be used more than once in calculating the mean, e.g. that if you were taking the mean of numbers 2,2,3,3,5, maybe it would be something like ${\displaystyle {\frac {2+3+5}{3}}}$ or ${\displaystyle {\frac {2+3+5}{5}}}$, rather than ${\displaystyle {\frac {2+2+3+3+5}{5}}}$. Can someone clarify whether this set notation (and the reference to sample spaces) really helps here? --75.165.90.180 (talk) 16:11, 15 September 2010 (UTC)Reply

Set notation does not help at all. I would use the phrase "list of numbers" instead. 197.79.4.133 (talk) 07:52, 3 May 2015 (UTC)Reply

I inserted a video from Khan Academy via the External Media template near the top of the article. This is something of an experiment and please do send me feedback. The idea of the external media template is that we can include media that is copyrighted - so we can't store it on Commons or Wikipedia - but which we would otherwise want to include in the article. Please look at the video and answer two questions 1) is it from a reliable source? and 2) if this material was public domain, would I want to include it in the article? I think the answer here is yes and yes, so we can include the video via the external media template placed where we would include the video if it were public domain. This type of usage is specifically allowed under WP:EL. I'd personally add another question, "Is it commercial"? but this is not required by WP:EL. In any case the Khan Academy is completely non-profit and they give away this video to anybody and everybody online.

I've placed similar external media templates in many art history articles - also from Khan Academy. Some folks think I must be working for KA - which is absolutely not the case. And one or two others must think that placing these videos in the article will completely break down the separation of ordinary "External Links" and the article - but I think the rules at WP:EL will prevent this.

So other than basic feedback, I've got just one question "Where do you think the video best fits in the article?"

Smallbones_(smalltalk) 14:06, 11 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

I'm deleting the last sentence of the section "Problems", which says

Where a phenomenon is rare in general (for example, emergency room visits among the general population), but occurs frequently in some people (for example, daredevils), then the mean value may be much lower than the median.[2]

The citation is to an offline textbook which I don't have access to. I believe the quoted passage is incorrect. If the phenomenon is rare, but some people have large values of it (e.g. number of emergency room visits) then for most people (observations) the value will be zero so the median will be zero; hence the mean will be much higher than the median. Duoduoduo (talk) 16:19, 25 March 2013 (UTC)Reply

You were right to doubt that example. As you say, the median number of ER visits for ppl generally will be nil - whereas the average (mean) has to be more than that. The phantom textbook's example is a struggle with a different problem.

Doing Main-street vox pop interviews, asking ppl how many ER visits they've had, you would get a great many zeros; overall, you would find a zero median, less than the mean.

If you do your survey by asking the patients how many visits they've had, as they leave the ER, you'll get very different results. No zeros at all, for a start, but probably a mean close to 1. If the majority at that particular facility are 'frequent flyers' - unlucky danger-sport enthusiasts, abuse victims, . . , not on their first visit - the median will be higher; if not, it will probably be exactly 1. So the median could be either side of the mean.

Either way, the different survey procedures mean you're sampling different populations - ppl generally, or ER patients. Hospital administrators will need figures for both populations; but they'll do well to be clear which one they're sampling, in any particular survey.

( And for either purpose they would also need to think about their survey procedures. ER exit interviews would miss those leaving feet-first; street vox-pops would miss housebound ppl, and some are at risk of frequent falls. )

2A04:B2C2:1002:6100:ACDC:2965:124C:4B82 (talk) 22:58, 14 March 2024 (UTC)Reply

The article doesn't fully explain it's key terms in a way that the average reader can understand. Instead it over-relies on Wiki-links to definitions in other articles, which makes reading this article too much of a chore for the lay reader. The descriptions that do remain in this article are often vague, incomplete or oblique (describing indirectly rather than directly in plain English). 208.54.86.231 (talk) 12:20, 13 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Fixed now. Thanks for the suggestion! Duoduoduo (talk) 22:22, 14 April 2013 (UTC)Reply

Even though sigma notation is relatively "tame" compared to some other mathematical notations, it is still quite literally Greek to the layman. Many people would come to this page, see the notation, and instantly return to Google.

Mathematical articles such as this should include section laying out the basics in layman's language. drh (talk) 17:11, 22 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Removed cn|date=October 2018 (citation needed) template. Added one citation to support 'three Ms' terminology. Please revert or review as needed.

• The Three M's of Statistics: Mode, Median, Mean June 30, 2010

Any discussion is welcome here. 172.250.246.150 (talk) 18:33, 3 December 2018 (UTC)Reply

This edit request by an editor with a conflict of interest has now been answered.

−

*[http://www.fxsolver.com/browse/formulas/Arithmetic+Mean Calculate the arithmetic mean of a series of numbers on fxSolver]

+

*[https://meancalculator.com Calculate the arithmetic mean of a series of numbers on MeanCalculator.com compare it with median and mode]

• Reason for the change: Fix broken link, improve references

Pereiratr (talk) 20:38, 5 June 2025 (UTC)Reply

This was a request for linkspam, so I have removed it per WP:ELNO. MrOllie (talk) 23:52, 26 June 2025 (UTC)Reply