24. Video: Better Way?

Notation for Calculating the Mean

We know that the mean is calculated as the sum of all our values divided by the number of values in our dataset.

In our current notation, adding all of our values together can be extremely tedious. If we want to add 3 values of some random variable together, we would use the notation:

\bold{x_1} + \bold{x_2} + \bold{x_3}

If we want to add 6 values together, we would use the notation:

\bold{x_1} + \bold{x_2} + \bold{x_3} + \bold{x_4} + \bold{x_5} + \bold{x_6}

To extend this to add one hundred, one thousand, or one million values would be ridiculous! How can we make this easier to communicate?!