If you work with any statistical analysis tool, sometimes you may have run into configuring the data into either of these following categories: Nominal, Ordinal, Interval, Ratio
Here is what each term means:
Nominal | Simply names or call them set of characters | Example: Full name, fruits, cars, etc |
Ordinal | Nominal + They have order | Example: Small, medium, big |
Interval | Ordinal + the intervals between each value are equally split | Example: temperature in Fahrenheit scale:10 20 30 etc Note that 20F is not twice as cold as 40F. So multiplication does not make sense on Interval data. But addition and subtraction works. Which brings us to next point: Ratio |
Ratio | Interval + multiplication makes sense | Weight: 60KG, 120KG.120 KG = 2 * 60 KG |
I hope the examples are of help when you are working with statistical analysis tools and need to categorize the data.