When I started out as a graduate student, I was a teaching assistant in a lab. Invariably in physics labs students are expected to measure some quantity multiple times and then take the average so as to minimize the effect of random uncertainties that are intrinsic to any measurement. I recall some students showing me a set of about six numbers and the average that they had calculated from it. They were amazed when I told them after a quick glance that the average was wrong.
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