VARIANCE determines the distance from the average, i.

e, how far each element of a set is from the average. Consider the set {3, 5, 7, 7, 38}. Here the average (also called mean) is (3 + 5 + 7 + 7 + 38)/5 = 12. (sum of numbers divided by number of terms) The variance is, s2 = 1 (xi x ) n1

where xi are the elements of the set, x is the mean and n is the total number of elements in the set, which in this case is 5. So, in this example the variance, denoted by s2 is, s2 = Or, (81 + 49 + 25 + 25 + 676)/4 = 214 Now STANDARD DEVIATION is the square root of variance, i.e., Standard deviation, denoted by s, s= For our sample data set, s = s2 = 1 (xi x ) n1 (3 12)2 + (5 12)2 + (7 12)2 + (7 12)2 + (38 12)2 ) (5 1)

214 = 14.63