Talk:Algorithms for calculating variance: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:52, 17 November 2008

Revision as of 14:06, 9 April 2009

Line 182:

Pascal P.

[[Special:Contributions/90.37.121.130|90.37.121.130]] ([[User talk:90.37.121.130|talk]]) 13:52, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

===Division by zero problem?===

The online algorithm should work with n=1 since it needs to progress through that stage to get to n=2, n=3, etc. Therefore, it would be incorrect to calculate the variance as

variance = M2 / (n-1)

A possible fix is:

if n > 1 then

variance = M2 / (n-1)

else

variance = 0

end if

Does any one have any objections to me updating this? [[User:JBrusey|JBrusey]] ([[User talk:JBrusey|talk]]) 14:06, 9 April 2009 (UTC)