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The n-1 indicates that the calculation is being expanded from a sample of a population to the entire population. Bessel's correction(the use of n − 1 instead of n in the formula) is where n is the number of observations in a sample: it corrects the bias in the estimation of the population variance, and some (but not all) of the bias in the estimation of the population standard deviation.

That is, when estimating the population variance and standard deviation from a sample when the population mean is unknown, the sample variance is a biased estimator of the population variance, and systematically underestimates it.

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Q: What does n-1 indicate in a calculation for variance?
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