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Glossary Math & Statistics

Variance

Variance is the average of the squared distances of values from their mean, a measure of how spread out they are.

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In more detail

Squaring removes signs and weights large misses more. Its units are the square of the data's units, which is why the Standard deviation (its square root) is used for reporting. For the data 2, 4, 4, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9 the variance is 4.

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See also

  • Glossary Standard deviation
    Standard deviation measures how far values typically stray from their mean; it is the square root of the variance.
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