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Variance V

 

The variance is a measure of how much the probability distribution is spread from the mean:

 

V=E\bigg[ \big(x-\bar{x}\big)^2\bigg] = E\big( x^2\big)-\bar{x}^2

 

where  denotes the expected value (mean) of whatever is in the brackets, so:

 

V=\int_{-\infty}^\infty \big(x-\bar{x}\big)^2 .f(x) .dx

 

The variance sums up the squared distance from the mean of all possible values of x, weighted by the probability of x occurring. The variance is known as the second moment about the mean. It has units that are the square of the units of x. So, if x is cows in a random field, V has units of cows2. This limits the intuitive value of the variance.

 

Variance and standard deviation have the following properties, where a is some constant and X, Xi are random variables:

 

V\big(X\big)\geq 0

and

\sigma\big(X\big)\geq 0

V\big(aX \big)=a^2V\big(X\big)

and

\sigma\big(aX\big)=a\sigma\big(X\big)

V\bigg( \displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{n} X_i \bigg)=\displaystyle\sum_{i=1}^{n}V(X_i)

providing the Xis are uncorrelated.

 

 

 


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