Abstract
I HAVE long been dissatisfied with the method of taking the arithmetic mean as the most probable value of a comparatively few direct observations of a quantity. This is certainly the legitimate result of the theory of probability, or “method of least squares,” when one knows nothing to guide one in giving more weight to one than to another observation.
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SMITH, R. True Average of Observations?. Nature 37, 464 (1888). https://doi.org/10.1038/037464a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/037464a0
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