- What's the difference between the median and the mean?
- The mean is the average — add up all the values, divide by the count. The median is the middle value once you sort the list. They tell you different things. The mean treats every value equally, so one giant outlier drags it. The median splits the list in half, so outliers don't move it. That's why salary reports use median income, not mean — a handful of billionaires shouldn't make it look like the average worker earns six figures.
- How do you find the median of an even-count list?
- Sort the list, then average the two middle values. For [1, 2, 3, 4], the two middle values are 2 and 3, and the median is 2.5. For [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6], the two middle values are 3 and 4, and the median is 3.5. The calculator handles this automatically — even counts highlight both middle values in the sorted view.
- Do I have to sort the numbers myself?
- No. Paste them in any order. The calculator sorts internally before finding the middle value. [5, 1, 4, 2, 3] gives the same median as [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] — both produce 3.
- Why doesn't an outlier change the median?
- The median only cares about position, not magnitude. In [1, 1, 1, 100], the middle is still 1 — the 100 is just the value at the top of the sorted list, not the middle of it. Replace 100 with 1,000,000 and the median is still 1. The mean would jump from 25.75 to 250,000.75. That robustness is why the median is the right stat for skewed data: income, home prices, time-to-checkout, response latency.
- Can I paste decimals or negative numbers?
- Yes. 1.5, -3, 0, and -0.001 all work. The calculator parses anything JavaScript recognizes as a finite number. Non-numeric tokens (words, symbols) are silently dropped — so 'mid-april: 12, 18, 9' calculates the median of 12, 18, 9.
- What does 'no single mode' mean?
- The mode is the value that appears most often. If every value appears exactly once — like [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] — there's no value that's more common than the others, so there's no meaningful mode. The calculator shows 'no single mode' in that case rather than picking an arbitrary value or listing all of them.
- Is anything saved or sent anywhere?
- No. The math runs entirely in your browser. Your numbers never leave the page — nothing is logged, stored, or sent to a server.
- I want the full statistical breakdown — variance, standard deviation, percentiles. Where?
- Use the Standard Deviation Calculator for sample/population SD and variance, or the Average Calculator for the mean/median/mode bundle. This page is the focused median view — one job, done well.
