Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Two compass bearings near north can have an ordinary arithmetic mean pointing south: the difficulty is that angles live on a circle, not a straight line. Using real wind observations, diffusion-MRI orientations, and geometric examples from machine learning, this article introduces circular and axial averages, directional variability, and probability models on circles and spheres. The guiding principle is to identify the geometry and symmetries of the observations before choosing a statistical method.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Author: Kulkarni, Siddhesh
Institution: Bristol-Myers Squibb (United States)
Language: English
Subfield: Applied Mathematics
Field: Mathematics
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7224092515