# Population Variance
$ \sigma^2 = \frac{\sum(x_i - \mu)^2}{N} $
- $N$ is the population size
- $\mu$ is the population mean
Variance measures the dispersion of a random variable and is the [[Standard Deviation]] squared.
For a Bernoulli trial this simplifies to:
$ \sigma^2 = p \times (1-p) $
- $p$ is the probability of success of the Bernoulli trial
Use [Sample Variance](Sample%20Variance.md) if your data is from a sample only.