我在“中位数的中位数”算法的Python实现中发布了我的解决方案，这比使用sort()稍微快一点。我的解决方案每列使用15个数字，速度~5N比每列使用5个数字的速度~10N快。最佳速度是~4N，但我可能是错的。

根据Tom在评论中的要求，我在这里添加了我的代码，以供参考。我认为速度的关键部分是每列使用15个数字，而不是5个。

#!/bin/pypy
#
# TH @stackoverflow, 2016-01-20, linear time "median of medians" algorithm
#
import sys, random


items_per_column = 15


def find_i_th_smallest( A, i ):
    t = len(A)
    if(t <= items_per_column):
        # if A is a small list with less than items_per_column items, then:
        #
        # 1. do sort on A
        # 2. find i-th smallest item of A
        #
        return sorted(A)[i]
    else:
        # 1. partition A into columns of k items each. k is odd, say 5.
        # 2. find the median of every column
        # 3. put all medians in a new list, say, B
        #
        B = [ find_i_th_smallest(k, (len(k) - 1)/2) for k in [A[j:(j + items_per_column)] for j in range(0,len(A),items_per_column)]]

        # 4. find M, the median of B
        #
        M = find_i_th_smallest(B, (len(B) - 1)/2)


        # 5. split A into 3 parts by M, { < M }, { == M }, and { > M }
        # 6. find which above set has A's i-th smallest, recursively.
        #
        P1 = [ j for j in A if j < M ]
        if(i < len(P1)):
            return find_i_th_smallest( P1, i)
        P3 = [ j for j in A if j > M ]
        L3 = len(P3)
        if(i < (t - L3)):
            return M
        return find_i_th_smallest( P3, i - (t - L3))


# How many numbers should be randomly generated for testing?
#
number_of_numbers = int(sys.argv[1])


# create a list of random positive integers
#
L = [ random.randint(0, number_of_numbers) for i in range(0, number_of_numbers) ]


# Show the original list
#
# print L


# This is for validation
#
# print sorted(L)[int((len(L) - 1)/2)]


# This is the result of the "median of medians" function.
# Its result should be the same as the above.
#
print find_i_th_smallest( L, (len(L) - 1) / 2)

def midme(list1):

    list1.sort()
    if len(list1)%2>0:
            x = list1[int((len(list1)/2))]
    else:
            x = ((list1[int((len(list1)/2))-1])+(list1[int(((len(list1)/2)))]))/2
    return x


midme([4,5,1,7,2])

sorted()函数对此非常有用。使用排序函数 要对列表排序，只需返回中间值(或两个中间值的平均值) 如果列表包含偶数个元素，则为。

def median(lst):
    sortedLst = sorted(lst)
    lstLen = len(lst)
    index = (lstLen - 1) // 2
   
    if (lstLen % 2):
        return sortedLst[index]
    else:
        return (sortedLst[index] + sortedLst[index + 1])/2.0

def median(array):
    """Calculate median of the given list.
    """
    # TODO: use statistics.median in Python 3
    array = sorted(array)
    half, odd = divmod(len(array), 2)
    if odd:
        return array[half]
    return (array[half - 1] + array[half]) / 2.0

如果您需要关于列表分布的额外信息，百分位数方法可能会很有用。中位数对应于列表的第50个百分位数:

import numpy as np
a = np.array([1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9])
median_value = np.percentile(a, 50) # return 50th percentile
print median_value 

def median(array):
    if len(array) < 1:
        return(None)
    if len(array) % 2 == 0:
        median = (array[len(array)//2-1: len(array)//2+1])
        return sum(median) / len(median)
    else:
        return(array[len(array)//2])