A look at a frequency histogram tells us many things about the distribution of values of a variable of interest within a population or a sample. However, it would be quite useful to have a set of numbers capturing some essential features quantitatively; this is certainly necessary if we have to compare two histograms, since visual perception can be misleading. More precisely, we need a few summary measures characterizing, e.g., the following properties:
- Location, i.e., the central tendency of the data
- Dispersion
- Skewness, i.e., lack of symmetry
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