HARMEAN

Microsoft Office Spreadsheet Functions

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HARMEAN

See Also

Returns the harmonic mean of a data set. The harmonic mean is the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of reciprocals.

Syntax

HARMEAN(number1,number2, ...)

Number1,number2, ...   are 1 to 30 arguments for which you want to calculate the mean. You can also use a single array or a reference to an array instead of arguments separated by commas.

Remarks

  • The arguments must be either numbers or names, arrays, or references that contain numbers.
  • If an array or reference argument contains text, logical values, or empty cells, those values are ignored; however, cells with the value zero are included.
  • If any data point ≤ 0, HARMEAN returns the #NUM! error value.
  • The harmonic mean is always less than the geometric mean, which is always less than the arithmetic mean.
  • The equation for the harmonic mean is:

    Equation

Example

The example may be easier to understand if you copy it to a blank spreadsheet.

How?

Data
4
5
8
7
11
4
3
Formula Description (Result)
=HARMEAN(A2:A8) Harmonic mean of a data set above (5.028376)