4 ms·
You should use a geometric mean for this sort of stuff. The difference between a one- and two-year sentence is much bigger than 25 and 26. So that would be 16
by n2d4 3y ago
You should use a geometric mean for this sort of stuff. The difference between a one- and two-year sentence is much bigger than 25 and 26.
So that would be 16 years, though obviously, it's foolish to use "right down the middle" as a heuristic for something like this. (The more severe a crime, the more incentive the defense has to pretend like it didn't happen at all.)
- orwin 3y agoI did not know about geometric mean (and i do have a math bachelor, granted it wasn't in statistics but still). Thank you, this is a great tool.
- bluishgreen 3y agoOne more to blow your mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_mean
- rovolo 3y agoI found it a lot easier to understand the harmonic and geometric averages when I learned about the "generalized f-mean". Many averages are arithmetic averages of a transformation of the value. "f" refers to the function which transforms your values. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-arithmetic_mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quasi-arithmetic_mean - The geometric average is the arithmetic average of the logarithm. It places emphasis on the ratio between numbers, rather than the absolute difference. - The harmonic average is the arithmetic average of the multiplicative inverse. It averages values by a constant numerator rather than denominator. For example, the average fuel economy of multiple vehicles makes more sense per-distance, so miles/gallon should be rewritten as gallons/mile. - The (RMS) root-mean-square is the arithmetic average of the square. Electrical power is proportional to the square of the amperage or voltage, so AC current and voltage uses the RMS average to make the power calculations correct.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]