trying to understand what dividing an arithmetic mean by 2 , 3 , and 4 would do?

Hello,

Please help me answer this. I'm trying to understand what dividing an arithmetic mean by 2 , 3 , and 4 would do? If the data set is large and particularly skewed in one direction , how would this effect the result if at all?

Thank you.

??? It would give you 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of the arithmetic mean! But why would you do so? What reason would you have for dividing the arithmetic mean by anything?

HallsofIvy said:

??? It would give you 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4 of the arithmetic mean! But why would you do so? What reason would you have for dividing the arithmetic mean by anything?

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Thanks. I'm looking for something a little deeper. Let me use a sample. Find the arithmetic mean of 1,1,1,1,1,6,6,6,8,10 .

The arithmetic mean would be 41/10. Thus 4.1. If I cut this number in half, it will provide 2.05. I get that, and so on for 1/3, and 1/4.

Now let's use another example with all data skewed in a particular direction, since this is the true reason of my question that I originally asked.

1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1,1, and 10. Arithmetic mean is 19/10 = 1.9. If you divide this by 2 you get 0.95. I find it interesting that 0.95 will be below all occurrences in the list(As 9/10 are 1 and 0.95 is below this every time ). Why is this and how can I find out how to calculate this is in more mathermically proper way?

Thanks again.