Deviations And Norms #1: Numbers

My mathematical intuition
just isn’t sophisticated enough
to appreciate all the differences
between the number you get by taking
the regular standard deviation
of a set and the similar number
you can get by simply calculating
the mean of all the absolute values
of the differences between each member
and the mean of the set. No squares or roots.

I used to create a function my way
just so that I’d always know how and why
all my figures came to be. Now I use
normal standard deviation functions.

The end result is similar numbers
so it’s just me being a conformist.

But now I have this pending mental note
that the next time I emergently meet
a friendly, pretty mathematician
I’m going to ask her out for ice cream
or a bowl of soup just so I can ask
what the mathematical differences
are between these two similar methods
for codifying differences by rules.