On 20 Apr 93 13:34:03 GMT, Gary Piatt observed:

: First, the median does not imply that half of the men are
: above and half below 7.3: it simply means that 7.3 is the mid-point
: between the maximum number of partners and the minimum (which is most
: likely zero).  

Actually, the median *is* defined as the 50th percentile.  If the
median number of sexual partners for men is 7.3, it means that 
at least 50% of men have had 7.3 or fewer sexual partners, and
at least 50% of men have had 7.3 or more sexual partners.

(Question: What is 0.3 of a sexual partner?  :)

To confuse matters more, take the following data set:

[5.0, 6.0, 6.0, 7.0, 7.0, 7.3, 8.0, 9.0, 9.0, 9.0, 250.0]

The mean (arithmetic average) of the above set of numbers is 29.4.
The sample standard deviation is 73.2.
The mode is 9.0.
The median is 7.3.

--
Michael D. Adams          (starowl@a2i.rahul.net)          Enterprise, Alabama