Talk:variance

RFV discussion: April–May 2020

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variance

Rfv-sense "A difference between what is expected and what happens." This sense seems like it could work in some cases (e.g. "a variance between the hypothesis and the lab results" [in which case, sense 3 seems to cover it just fine]). But in the broadest reading, it seems odd (e.g. "the optimistic graduate's variance" [implying that the graduate had high expectations that were not met] doesn't seem to make sense); has "variance" been used this way? Imetsia (talk) 20:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this is probably a special case of a broader sense, but I'm not sure that the broader sense is presently covered. "a difference" does not seem to me to be the same as "the state of differing", which how sense 3 presently reads. Mihia (talk) 13:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Is “the optimistic graduate’s difference between what is expected and what happens” a proper phrase? The subject of the expecting is the observer, not the object displaying the variance. The phrase does not mean, “the difference between the optimistic graduate’s expectation and what happened”. Taken literally, it could mean instead that we expected the optimistic graduate to be overly optimistic, but in reality they proved to be only moderately optimistic; the difference between these degrees of optimism is the variance. It would (I think) be clearer if "what happens” is replaced by “what is observed”.  --Lambiam 21:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

cited Kiwima (talk) 21:31, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

RFV-passed Kiwima (talk) 21:39, 14 May 2020 (UTC)