Min and Max
The min and max are easy.
def min_and_max_of_sums a
return [nil, nil] if a.empty?
negs, nonnegs = a.partition { |n| n < 0 }
[negs.any? ? negs.sum : nonnegs.min, nonnegs.any? ? nonnegs.sum : negs.max]
end
min_and_max_of_sums [1, 4, -5, 7, -8, 13]
#=> [-13, 25]
min_and_max_of_sums [1, 2, 3]
#=> [1, 6]
min_and_max_of_sums [-1, -2, -3]
#=> [-6, -1]
min_and_max_of_sums []
#=> [nil, nil]
Mean
Now consider the calculation of the mean.
If n is the size of the array a, there are 2n combinations of elements of a that contain between 0 and n elements.1 Moreover, there is a 1-1 mapping between each of those combinations and an n-vector of zeros and ones, where the ith element of the n-vector equals 1 if and only if the element ai is included in the combination. Note that there are 2n such n-vectors, one-half containing a 1 in the ith position. This means that one-half of the combinations contain the element ai. As i is arbitrary, it follows that each element of a appears in one-half of the combinations.
The mean of the sums of all elements of all combinations equals T/2n, where T is the sum of the sums of the elements of each combination. Each element ai appears in 2n/2 combinations, so its contribution to T equals (in Ruby terms)
a[i] * 2**(n)/2
As this hold for every element of a, the mean equals
a.sum * (2**(n)/2)/2**(n)
=> a.sum/2
Here's an example. For the array
a = [1, 4, 8]
the mean of the sums would be
a.sum/2
#=> 13/2 => 6.5
If we were to calculate the mean by its definition we would perform the following calculation (and of course get the same return value).
(0 + (1) + (4) + (8) + (1+4) + (1+8) + (4+8) + (1=4+8))/2**3
#=> (4*1 + 4*4 + 4*8)/8
#=> (1 + 4 + 8)/2
#=> 6.5
I will leave the calculating of the median to others.
1 Search for "Sums of the binomial coefficients" here.