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yopy
Sep1-09, 09:05 PM
i calculated the variance of a few measurements and i got the value of 3.65

i know the variance tells us the degree of dispersion from them ean value, and i came up with 3.65, what does this number say about the data?

Mark44
Sep1-09, 09:31 PM
If you're dealing with a normal distribution, it tells you that about 69% of your values are within +/- 3.65 units of the mean.

yopy
Sep1-09, 10:04 PM
If you're dealing with a normal distribution, it tells you that about 69% of your values are within +/- 3.65 units of the mean.

thank you

mathie.girl
Sep3-09, 10:00 AM
If you're dealing with a normal distribution, it tells you that about 69% of your values are within +/- 3.65 units of the mean.

I thought that in a normal distribution, 69% of your values are within +/- one standard deviation of the mean. So in this case, 68-69% of the data will be in the interval between \mu - \sqrt{3.65} and \mu + \sqrt{3.65}, if your mean is \mu.

Variance is the average of the squares of the distance between your data and the mean. Like standard deviation, it also measures how spread out your data is.

Mark44
Sep3-09, 02:40 PM
I thought that in a normal distribution, 69% of your values are within +/- one standard deviation of the mean. So in this case, 68-69% of the data will be in the interval between \mu - \sqrt{3.65} and \mu + \sqrt{3.65}, if your mean is \mu.

Variance is the average of the squares of the distance between your data and the mean. Like standard deviation, it also measures how spread out your data is.
Thanks for the correction. The (population) variance is the square of the (population) standard deviation.