We touched on the necessity of fundamental statistics when working with data in Chapter 5, Gathering and Loading Data in Python.Let's walk through the differences between mean, median, and mode in statistics as it applies to data analysis. The mean or average is when you sum the values of numeric values in a series divided by the count of those same numbers. The mean or average is a measure in analytics and is typically used to gauge performance over a period of time and define a comparison for each period of time.
For example, you see average daily temperatures all the time in the news—how is that calculated? Depending on your geographic location, the weather will have the temperature recorded in specific increments, such as hours. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), for example, uses stations and a scientific approach to calculate the minimum and maximum temperature values for each day and location...