MATLAB: What does mean(s(:)) do and the reason for using ” : ” for mean of a square matrix

matrixmean

The working of the below mentioned and the reason for using " : " avg = mean(s(:));

Best Answer

Well, what does mean do, when applied to a matrix? TRY IT!!!!!!!!! You will learn by trying things.
magic(3)
ans =
   8     1     6
   3     5     7
   4     9     2
>> mean(magic(3))
ans =
   5     5     5
>> mean(magic(3),2)
ans =
   5
   5
   5
So when you apply mean to a MATRIX, it finds the mean across rows, or down columns.
When you apply mean to a vector, it finds the mean of the vector elements.
mean(1:10)
ans =
          5.5
So how can you find the mean of an entire matrix?
Can you convert a matrix to a vector? If so, then you can just use mean.
What does s(:) do? It converts a matrix to a column vector. Therefore, you should now know what mean(s:)) does, and why it works.
When you don't understand some code in MATLAB, take it apart, one level at a time. Think what each part does. And if you don't know how something works, EXPERIMENT!
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