October 27th, 2007
Folks,
I’m still wiping the egg off of my face after reading a comment from “Mr. Mean” (I think he means “mean” as in numerical average, not mean like my 8th grade home room teacher) Re my math critique of a Discovery magazine article. It ends up that I was in error and Discovery’s Mr. Dickinson correct. Mr. Mean’s excellent analysis is in the comments of the above mentioned posting. I calculated the median, which I knew. I also assumed, as is often the case, that the median would be very close to the mean. It is not. Mr. Dickinson’s modesty, in not discussing the detailed calculation that must have been required to get his answer, (I assumed he simply inverted 1/1743) lead to my downfall. So apologies to all, humility for me and an excellent math problem for my next class.
Cheers,
Dr. Ron