Someone did that study that showed that the centre of America, in population terms, was in a state won by the winner of the election in every election except one since Washington.
Not true. In 1916 the mean center of population was almost certainly Indiana, but Wilson lost it. From 1810 to 1850, the mean center of population was in Virginia, but Harrison lost it in '40 and Quincy lost it in '24. The median center of population has been in Indiana since 1950.
Not so:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mean_center_of_U.S._population
Mean does not equal median. Gustaf was probably saying that the intersection of the median lattitude and the median longitude has been in Indiana in every census from 1950 onwards. In other words, half of the Americans counted in each of those census have lived north, south, east and west of a point in Indiana. Everyone who lived northeast, southeast, northwest and southwest of that point moving to Maine, Florida, southern California and Washington would have no impact on the median center of population, while it would definitely have some impact on the mean center of population.
Kevin
Gustaf was talking mean. Thefactor inexplicably switched to median at the end of his post, but I did not read it (as I made the understandable assumption that people to do suddenly and abruptly change their topic in the middle of their posts) as such, so I posted the link to tell him that no, the mean center of population has not been in Indiana since 1950.
