Measures of Spatial Central Tendency
The coordinate-wise mean of a point set is the centroid, which solves the same variational problem in the plane (or higher dimensional Euclidean space) that the familiar average solves on the real line — that is, the centroid has the smallest possible average squared distance to all points in the set.
Read more about this topic: Spatial Descriptive Statistics
Famous quotes containing the words measures of, measures, central and/or tendency:
“To have the fear of God before our eyes, and, in our mutual dealings with each other, to govern our actions by the eternal measures of right and wrong:MThe first of these will comprehend the duties of religion;Mthe second, those of morality, which are so inseparably connected together, that you cannot divide these two tables ... without breaking and mutually destroying them both.”
—Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)
“Almost everywhere we find . . . the use of various coercive measures, to rid ourselves as quickly as possible of the child within us—i.e., the weak, helpless, dependent creature—in order to become an independent competent adult deserving of respect. When we reencounter this creature in our children, we persecute it with the same measures once used in ourselves.”
—Alice Miller (20th century)
“The central problem of novel-writing is causality.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“Myths, as compared with folk tales, are usually in a special category of seriousness: they are believed to have “really happened,” or to have some exceptional significance in explaining certain features of life, such as ritual. Again, whereas folk tales simply interchange motifs and develop variants, myths show an odd tendency to stick together and build up bigger structures. We have creation myths, fall and flood myths, metamorphose and dying-god myths.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)