Please help - get average

[Cliff Wells]

On Wed, 2004-10-27 at 09:07 +0100, Robin Becker wrote:
> Cliff Wells wrote:
> ......
> > 
> > total = 0.0
> > count = 0
> > number = None
> > 
> > while number not in ('q', 'Q'):
> >     number = raw_input("Enter a number (or Q to quit): ")
> >     try:
> >         number = float(number)
> >     except ValueError:
> >         continue
> >     total += number
> >     count += 1
> > 
> > print "The average is:", total / count
> > 
> ...... interestingly the standard algorithms for means/deviations are 
> numerically poor. As an example
> 
>  >>> (1.e30+1-1.0e30)/3
> 0.0
> 
> Where we have total loss of information in one of the terms.
> 
> 
> There are better algorithms involving recursion,
> 
> eg
> 
>     mu[n] = (data[n]+(n-1)*mu[n-1])/n
> 
> The error in the existing estimate, mu[n-1], gets multiplied by the 
> number (n-1)/n which is less than one (ie the errors are damped).
> 
> However, in the case of widely differing magnitudes I think you need to 
> accumulate the sums specially.

Luckily I'm a programmer not a mathematician, so most days I can happily
continue averaging things the way I did in grade school.  And if
something goes wrong, well I can always count on there being only 32
bits in an integer and just catch the error there <wink>.

-- 
Cliff Wells <clifford.wells at comcast.net>