If you rank the countries of the world in terms of the academic performance of their schoolchildren, the U.S. is just below average, half a standard deviation below a clump of relatively high-performing countries like Canada and Belgium.

NEWYORKER: Most Likely to Succeed

We sought to account for the variations of baseball's different eras with the tried and true tool of standard deviation, which allowed us to look past raw win totals to measure the degree to which a team stood above the pack in a given season.

FORBES: Magazine Article

It's lost 0.3% a year over three years with a standard deviation of 14%.

FORBES: Magazine Article