## Math Tip for Coders:

Remember when averaging percentages, unlike plain values,no matter if its a simple mean, a moving average, or a exponential moving average, you always want to use the repeated operator on percentages compared to the one you would use on plain values. I know thats confusing and really only makes sense with an example.

So each of the following operators is the repeated form of the prior: +, *,^ (exponent)

Similarly the following: -, / , roots (like square root)

So for a simple mean with plain values you would average three values by doing:

(a + b + c)/3

However if your doing that for percentages that formula doesnt work instead you do:

(a * b * c) ^ (1/3)

Remember taking something to the power of 1/3 is the same as taking the third root.

Also keep in mind the variables here must be percentages such that they are anywhere from 0 to infinity. If you invested in something and you made no money and lost no money it would be 1, for 100%, if you lost all your money its 0, if you lost half its 0.5 (50%), if you doubled your money its 2.0 (200%) and so on

So if you inveted in three different things, and each time you doubled your money, and you wanted to know what your average percentage of return on investment was you would do: (2 * 2 * 2) ^ (1/3) and that would give you your mean, 2.. If you treated it like normal values and added then divided while it would work in this case it would give you **significantly** incorrect values in other cases.

As I stated this holds true for more complex types of averages too, take exponential moving average as an example. For plain values with EMA you apply each new value to just the previous EMA (and dont need to worry about combining all the values at once).. So if you flipped a coin 100 times and and took the EMA of the first 99 and now want to know know the EMA after the 100th flip (1 being heads and 0 being tails) you do:

(last_value * (1 - alpha) + current_value * alpha)

that gives you your current EMA where alpha is any number from 0 to 1... now to apply that to percentages again you take each operator and make it the next one up so for percentages it is actually:

(last_percentage^(1-alpha) * current_percentage^alpha)

#math #programming #mathematics #coding #code

@freemo Does this apply to sets of percentages that are constrained to 0 <= 1 ? That is, percentages that are never above 100%?

@Pat Depends on why it is constrained in that way.. does it truely represent situations where the final value has always decreased? then if so, yes..

@freemo Yes, like relative humidity or percentage of reflected light.

@Pat yes it would apply in those cases as well.