Snidely
Posts:
9
Registered:
10/15/10
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Re: Is this mathematically possible?
Posted:
Oct 15, 2010 1:46 PM
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On Oct 15, 1:18 am, Jared <jared4...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Let's say you are given a mean and a median for several percentile
> ranges.
>
> From the zeroth to the 20th percentile, let's say the median is 7.5
> and the mean is 72.6.
> From the 20th to the 40th percentile, the median is 33.7 and the mean
> is 121.5.
> And from the 40th to the 60th percentile, the median is 72 and the
> mean is 194.6.
>
> The rest doesn't really matter; this illustrates my point.
>
> How can the mean for 0-20 be higher than the median for the 40-60
> range? Isn't that mathematically impossible?
I am having trouble picturing what is being described here. A median
of 7.5 and a mean of 72.6? An order of magnitude difference? That
sounds like very skewed data, which I suppose is possible if you're
looking, for example, at a gaussian distribution from the tail to
where the central bump just takes off (steeply). That is, if you're
computing the median of the elements of the data set that appear in
the range, and the mean of the same elements.
Am I getting warm?
/dps
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