- #1
Niles
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Homework Statement
Hi all.
I thought about this earlier today. Let's say I toss a dice three times, and the outcome is 2, 4 and 5. Is the mean (2+4+5)/3 or (2+4+5)/6?
The reason why I am asking is that we can look at the mean as a weighted average of the probability of getting each outcome. So in our case, the probability for getting {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6} is the same, so that is why one might be inclined to say that the mean is (2+4+5)/6.
But then again, only 3 tosses has been made. So my question is:
1) Am I looking at two different things here?
2) If yes (which is probably the correct answer to #1), then is (2+4+5)/6 the expectation value (i.e. the average when tossing the dice infinitely many times), and (2+4+5)/3 the average of that sample?
Thanks in advance. I really appreciate your help.
Niles.