Central Moment
In probability theory and statistics, central moments form one set of values by which the properties of a probability distribution can be usefully characterised. Central moments are used in preference to ordinary moments because then the values' higher-order quantities relate only to the spread and shape of the distribution, rather than to its location.
Sets of central moments can be defined for both univariate and multivariate distributions.
Read more about Central Moment: Univariate Moments, Multivariate Moments
Famous quotes containing the words central and/or moment:
“For us necessity is not as of old an image without us, with whom we can do warfare; it is a magic web woven through and through us, like that magnetic system of which modern science speaks, penetrating us with a network subtler than our subtlest nerves, yet bearing in it the central forces of the world.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“Sometimes, because of its immediacy, television produces a kind of electronic parable. Berlin, for instance, on the day the Wall was opened. Rostropovich was playing his cello by the Wall that no longer cast a shadow, and a million East Berliners were thronging to the West to shop with an allowance given them by West German banks! At that moment the whole world saw how materialism had lost its awesome historic power and become a shopping list.”
—John Berger (b. 1926)