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I have a list of numbers. Each number can be any amount above 0 but under 1 million. There are 1 million numbers.

The numbers add up to 1 million.

Is it possible to calculate an average (Mean)? Normally calculating the mean does not work as 1 million / 1 million = 1 of course.

This is a bit of a random question but thanks.

Neztore
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Let us call your numbers $(X_i)_{1\leq i \leq 10^6}$. The mean is defined as $$ \mu = \frac{1}{10^6} \sum_{i=1}^{10^6} X_i=1$$ so the mean is $1$. You can either define it as the mean of this specific series or the probabilistic mean in both cases it will be $1$.

Jonathan D
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  • Alright. Thank you very much for your response. I will mark this as the answer when I can and use a different average. – Neztore Feb 15 '18 at 23:17
  • The only case where it could be different from $1$ is if the $X_i$ are correlated to have a sum equal to $10^6$ but that taken alone they have a different distribution. But in that case you need to specify what variables you are talking about. – Jonathan D Feb 15 '18 at 23:21