4,994
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Line 29:
Line 29: + + + + +
Random thoughts
--[[User:SeanTheSheep|SeanTheSheep]] 04:31, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
--[[User:SeanTheSheep|SeanTheSheep]] 04:31, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
:Conservapedia is partially intended as a learning resource for homeschooled teenagers. An article like ''average'' should cover the topic clearly and concisely at a high school level before moving on to more advanced issues, and it should do so in simple language. You might want to try out writing drafts of more advanced material here. You certainly shouldn't replace something that's accurate and succinct with something that's richer and more advanced but harder to understand.
:Averages have other uses besides being estimators of the mean of a normally distributed population. The arithmetic mean is very suitable for some of them. For example, if I drive 20,000 miles a year, and if I am trying to decide whether to buy a 50 mpg Prius or a 25 mpg PT Cruiser, the datum of interest to me estimating fuel costs is the average (arithmetic mean) price of gas during the course of the year... not the median or the mode or the kurtosis.
:On the other hand... a Prius has a dashboard display that displays the average miles per gallon as a bar chart, over five-minute intervals. On a 25-minute trip, the display registers 30 mpg for the first five minutes, 35 mpg for the next five, 40 mpg for the next five, 45 mpg for the next five, 50 mpg for last five. Assuming the car is driven at a constant speed, what's the average mileage for the trip? Answer: the harmonic mean of 30, 35, 40, 45, and 50 = 38.72 mpg. I wouldn't call that practical, but it's one of the very few real-world examples I've ever come across where the right answer is the harmonic mean. (Another is the average speed of a consisting of equal ''distances'' driven at varying speeds... e.g. if I commute to work at an average speed of 70 mph and commute home at an average speed of 30 mph, what's my average speed for the day? Answer: the harmonic mean of 70 and 30. [[User:Dpbsmith|Dpbsmith]] 21:08, 14 May 2007 (EDT)
==some random math stuff in case anyone wants to use it==
==some random math stuff in case anyone wants to use it==