https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mode_(statistics)#Uniqueness_and_definedness
"Finally, as said before, the mode is not necessarily unique. Certain pathological distributions (for example, the Cantor distribution) have no defined mode at all." That said, just as we can redefine median to be the mean of the two median values when the length of the sequence is even, we could redefine mode as the median of the candidate mode values when there is more than one "most frequently occuring value". Thanks, -- Raul On Fri, Jul 24, 2020 at 2:36 PM Devon McCormick <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi - I've started reading "Fun Q" which is a book on machine learning using > the q language. Early on, the author points out that his "mode" function - > where "mode" is stats-talk for "the most frequent observation" - is > order-dependent. > > I checked my own "mode" and found that this is true of mine as well: > mode > ~. {~ [: (i. >./) #/.~ > mode 1 2 2 3 3 > 2 > mode 1 3 3 2 2 > 3 > > This might be an ill-defined statistical concept but does anyone have any > insight based on practice? Is this order-dependence just a weakness of the > definition of "mode"? > > I could not find "mode" defined in any of the J standard libraries. > > Thanks, > > Devon > > -- > > Devon McCormick, CFA > > Quantitative Consultant > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For information about J forums see http://www.jsoftware.com/forums.htm
