computing on streams of data


If I assume I read an "almost infinite" stream of numbers
from a datasource - while my computer can hold at most only a few
of them - I can stop anytime and still be able to provide the average
(mean)
of the numbers read.

It is theoretically possible that something similar can
be done with the median (or any other quantile) ?

Is this an absurd problem or there exist (or can exist)
a solution to it ?

-P

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