Monday, August 07, 2006

Pointless Factoid XVI


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The Standard Deviation is the average distance of any set of values from a mean. It's also a fairly middling blog that sucks the life out of its readers one post at a time.

Image courtesy of SDSU, used without permission but with much admiration.

5 comments:

Bethany said...

When I took my intro to psych class I had to learn how to calculate Standard Deviation... I did so (even though mathematics is far from my strong point) but to this day cannot wrap my head around what its for.

Cursed equations... *glowers at numbers everywhere*

*glowers*

... *glowers*

Chas Chesterfield Esq. said...

Six Sigma has so permeated the business world (even in areas where it seems odd)I imagine Standard Deviation will find its way into the basic venacular before we know it.

LeperColony said...

Uhm, my cat's breath smells like cat food?

Matt Kanninen said...

I've taken a great many math classes, but never found a situation where standard deviation was any use to me. It results in a pretty graph, and the graph isn't completely useless...

Sebastien Millon said...

This brings back memories of my statistics class, which reminds me of econometrics. I don't remember a damn thing, my comprehension of those subjets was beyond pitiful. A pointless comment...

But thought you should know it inspired memories.