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#Statistical

HARMEAN

Excel Functions

Calculate harmonic mean

Syntax

EXCEL
=HARMEAN(number1, [number2], ...)

Arguments

Parameter Description
number1 First value or reference.
number2 [optional] Second value or reference.

Return Value

Calculated mean

Details

The Excel HARMEAN function returns the harmonic mean for a set of numeric values. The harmonic mean is a kind of numeric average, calculated by dividing the number values in a list by the sum of the reciprocal of each value. In other words, the harmonic mean is the reciprocal of the average of the reciprocals. Because the harmonic mean tends toward the smallest values in a set of data, it limits the impact of large outliers, but exaggerates the impact of small outliers. The harmonic mean is always less than the geometric mean (GEOMEAN), which is always less than the arithmetic mean (AVERAGE). The HARMEAN function takes multiple arguments in the form number1, number2, number3, etc. up to 255 total. Arguments can be a hardcoded constant, a cell reference, or a range. Often, a single range or

Examples

Examples

The average of 1, 2, and 6 is 3. The harmonic mean of 1, 2, and 6 is 1.8:

EXCEL
=AVERAGE(1,2,6) // returns 3
=HARMEAN(1,2,6) // returns 1.8
Examples

In the example shown, the formulas in E5 and E6 are, respectively:

EXCEL
=AVERAGE(B5:B14)
=HARMEAN(B5:B14)

See Also

AVERAGE TRIMMEAN GEOMEAN