How do you find the median between two numbers?
1 Answer
The Median is the number in an ordered series midway between the range extremes. It is not usually identical with the Mean.
Explanation:
For a set of only two values, the median will be the same as the mean, or arithmetic average. For data sets that is not true. For example, the numbers 2, 10 have both a mean and a median of 6.
The median is the value at the midpoint of the dataset – NOT the midpoint of the values! It doesn’t really mean anything for just two numbers. The mean is the arithmetic average: (10 + 2)/2 = 6. But if we add two more numbers, say 3 and 4, the median will be 3.5, but the mean will now be (2 + 3 + 4 + 10)/4 = 4.75.
If we add a fifth number to make the median more obvious you can see the shift. Add a 5 to the data set. Now, the 4 is the Median (middle number), and the average is 4.8.
See also the following page for more discussion and examples: http://www.purplemath.com/modules/meanmode.htm
