What is the median of the following numbers: 5, 3, 8, 7, 2?

To find the median of a set of numbers, you first need to arrange them in ascending order. For the numbers provided—5, 3, 8, 7, and 2—the organized sequence is 2, 3, 5, 7, 8.

The median is defined as the middle number in a sorted list. Since there are five numbers in this list, the median will be the third number in the ordered sequence. In this case, the first number is 2, the second is 3, and the third number is 5.

Thus, the median of the given numbers is 5. This value represents the middle of the dataset, effectively dividing the dataset into two equal parts, one with numbers less than 5 and one with numbers greater than 5.