Mean of squares of first nn positive integers.

Write a function called mean_squares that returns mm, which is the mean of the squares of the first nn positive integers, where nn is a positive integer and is the only input argument. For example, if nn is 5, your function needs to compute the average of the numbers 1, 4, 9, 16, and 25. You may use any built-in functions including, for example, sum.
function mm = mean_squares (nn)
sqr = (1:nn).^2; %ERROR
total = sum(sqr);
mm = total/nn;
end
I wrote the above code. In line 2, I got the following error: "For colon operator with char operands, first and last operands must be char."
However,the code if executed in the command window, runs fine.

3 Comments

You could just say
mean_squares = @(nn) (nn+1).*(2*nn+1)/6;
function O = odd_rms(n)
n = n*2-1;
O = [1:2:n];
O = O.^2;
O = sum(O)/n;
O = sqrt(O);
it did not work for 2 when you check it by grader

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 Accepted Answer

Looks fine to me, but you should also be aware that there is a closed form formula
mm = (nn+1)*(2*nn+1)/6

More Answers (2)

the code looks correct, seems like you're passing a character rather than an integer.
>> mean_squares('5') % incorrect
>> mean_squares(5) %correct
Thank You for the answers. But after posting the question,when I re-executed the function, voila! It ran successfully.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

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Asked:

on 24 Jul 2015

Commented:

on 23 Jan 2017

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