I do not think you can calculate the Mean without knowing the Units of Power - Edit 1
Before modification by darius_sedai at 22/11/2012 03:57:25 AM
I appreciated what you said, but please correct me if I am wrong...were you able to answer my question? I could not figure out what you were saying.
I want to know if we assign Morgase 1 unit of power if we can then calculate the mean (in terms of units of power). I know that Morgase is 5.73 SD below the mean. But I want to know if it is possible to determine what the mean is (assuming we assign Morgase 1 unit of power). If that is possible, please someone share the formula with me and explain how you calculate the mean. That's what I was trying to ask about.
I want to know if we assign Morgase 1 unit of power if we can then calculate the mean (in terms of units of power). I know that Morgase is 5.73 SD below the mean. But I want to know if it is possible to determine what the mean is (assuming we assign Morgase 1 unit of power). If that is possible, please someone share the formula with me and explain how you calculate the mean. That's what I was trying to ask about.
all we can assume is that Lanfear is 100% as strong as it is possible to be and Morgase is as weak as it is possible to be. But without knowing what those actual numbers are we cannot possibly calculate a Mean that is accurate.
What I'm getting at is this ... you can set a Power scale (as in Units of saidar), but it's all speculation since the author never set it out in the books or in any quote. You can say Morgase can channel 1 Unit of Saidar, but that tells us nothing of what Lanfear can Channel.
Even saying we think Morgase/Lanfear are 5.73 SDs from the Mean is meaningless because we have to make assumptions on populations and frequency of their power level in nature. There could be 10 women at Lanfears level in a 7B population, we simply don't know. All we do know is that there IS a Bell Curve distribution of strength ... and we only know that because RJ said so in an interview/Q&A.
I've been debating this with a few people on the forum for years and we've never been able to come to a conclusion ... we all have a similar continuum of who is stronger than whom, but our scales are totally arbitrary because the author (IMO deliberately) made Power levels vague. Each of us has made the Bell Curve work for our own scales, but none of us can make it 100% accurate without more information.