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The median of a finite list of numbers is the "middle" number, when those numbers are listed in order from smallest to greatest. If the data set has an odd number of observations, the middle one is selected (after arranging in ascending order). For example, the following list of seven numbers, 1, 3, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9
These are the number of moons of each planet in the Solar System. It helps to put the observations in ascending order: 0, 0, 1, 2, 13, 27, 61, 63. There are eight observations, so the median is the mean of the two middle numbers, (2 + 13)/2 = 7.5. Splitting the observations either side of the median gives two groups of four observations.
The median is the middle number of the group when they are ranked in order. (If there are an even number of numbers, the mean of the middle two is taken.) Thus to find the median, order the list according to its elements' magnitude and then repeatedly remove the pair consisting of the highest and lowest values until either one or two values are ...
The bold numbers (36, 39) are used to calculate the median as their average. As there are an even number of data points, the first three methods all give the same results. (The Method 3 is executed such that the median is not chosen as a new data point and the Method 1 started.)
The 25th percentile is also known as the first quartile (Q 1), the 50th percentile as the median or second quartile (Q 2), and the 75th percentile as the third quartile (Q 3). For example, the 50th percentile (median) is the score below (or at or below, depending on the definition) which 50% of the scores in the distribution are found.
However, finding the median is itself a selection problem, on the entire original input. Trying to find it by a recursive call to a selection algorithm would lead to an infinite recursion, because the problem size would not decrease in each call. [7] Quickselect chooses the pivot uniformly at random from the input values.
The rank of the second quartile (same as the median) is 10×(2/4) = 5, which is an integer, while the number of values (10) is an even number, so the average of both the fifth and sixth values is taken—that is (8+10)/2 = 9, though any value from 8 through to 10 could be taken to be the median. 9 Third quartile
The weighted median can be computed by sorting the set of numbers and finding the smallest set of numbers which sum to half the weight of the total weight. This algorithm takes () time. There is a better approach to find the weighted median using a modified selection algorithm. [1]