Content deleted Content added
Richard001 (talk | contribs) m →Plain English examples of standard deviation in real life: Rename section |
|||
Line 110:
Standard deviation may serve as a measure of uncertainty. In physical science for example, the reported standard deviation of a group of repeated [[measurement]]s should give the [[accuracy and precision|precision]] of those measurements. When deciding whether measurements agree with a theoretical prediction, the standard deviation of those measurements is of crucial importance: if the mean of the measurements is too far away from the prediction (with the distance measured in standard deviations), then we consider the measurements as contradicting the prediction. This makes sense since they fall outside the range of values that could reasonably be expected to occur if the prediction were correct and the standard deviation appropriately quantified. See [[prediction interval]].
====
The practical value of understanding the standard deviation of a set of values is in appreciating how much variation there is away from the "average" (mean).
| |||