The Wright Median

Historical and didactical phenomenology are both mouthfuls. Interesting, though. More on these later.

The paragraph below seems to refer to the concept of the median, and was written by Edward Wright, cartographer and mathematician, in about 1599:

Neither if there be disagreement betwixt observations, are they all by and by to be rejected; but as when many arrows are shot at a mark, and the mark afterwards away, he may be thought to work according to reason, who to find out the place where the mark stood, shall seek out the middle place amongst all the arrows: so amongst many different observations, the middlemost is likest to come nearest the truth. (Eisenhart, 1974, p. 52, spelling modernized)

Reference: Eisenhart, C.: 1974, 'The development of the concept of the best mean of a set of measurements from antiquity to the present day', 1971 ASA Presidential Address. Unpublished manuscript.