Krishna’s family has 4 members. The daily rice consumption of the 4 family members is - 0.5 kg, 0.4 kg, 0.3 kg and 0.6 kg. Krishna wants to find the average rice consumption per family member. What is the measure that will come into use now?
Mean
Krishna needs to calculate the mean to find the average rice consumption per member. Let the 4 numbers be x1,x2,x3,x4. Their mean isx1+x2+x3+x44.
What is the meaning of mean of the 4 numbers? If I want to replace the 4 numbers by a single number which when added 4 times gives the same total as the 4 numbers, this single number is the ‘mean’.
In case of Krishna’s family, if the rice consumption of each family member is replaced by the same number (mean) it would tell Krishna what is the rice consumption per member if all family members consumed the same amount. This ‘mean’ is nothing but rice consumption per head.