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More or Less: The Story of Average
How astronomers introduced the world to the average.
In the 1600s astronomers were coming up with measurements to help sailors read their maps with a compass. But with all the observations of the skies they were making, how do they choose the best number? We tell the story of how astronomers started to find the average from a group of numbers. By the 1800s, one Belgian astronomer began to apply this to all sorts of social and national statistics β and the βAverage Manβ was born.
(Image: Illustration of an observatory. Credit: Shutterstock)
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Tue 12 Apr 2016
15:23GMT
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- Tue 12 Apr 2016 15:23GMTΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Service except East and Southern Africa & West and Central Africa, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Service Core, ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Service ANR & ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ World Service US Public Radio