Quantiles
The median is one way to calculate the middle value from a list, and the variance provides a way to measure the spread of the data about this midpoint. If the entire spread of data were represented on a scale of zero to one, the median would be the value at 0.5.
For example, consider the following sequence of numbers:
[10 11 15 21 22.5 28 30]
There are seven numbers in the sequence, so the median is the fourth, or 21. This is also referred to as the 0.5 quantile. We can get a richer picture of a sequence of numbers by looking at the 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.7, and 1.0 quantiles. Taken together, these numbers will not only show the median, but will also summarize the range of the data and how the numbers are distributed within it. They're sometimes ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.
Read now
Unlock full access