Continuous or discrete variable

Imagine you're counting the number of cars passing through a toll booth. You can't count half a car; you either have one car or none. But when you're measuring the temperature in a room, you can say it's 23.5 degrees Celsius, not just 23 or 24.

In the toll booth scenario, you're dealing with discrete events—each car is a distinct, separate event. In contrast, measuring temperature is continuous because you can have any value within a range, not just whole numbers. Discrete variables are counted in whole units, while continuous variables can take on any value within a range.