Arithmetic Mean

The arithmetic mean is the most commonly used and readily understood measure of central
tendency. In statistics, the term average refers to any of the measures of central tendency. The
arithmetic mean is defined as being equal to the sum of the numerical values of each and every
observation divided by the total number of observations. Symbolically, if we have a data set
containing the values
The arithmetic mean is defined by the formula

Properties of arithmetic mean

The arithmetic mean has several properties that make it useful, especially as a measure of central
tendency. These include:

If numbers
have mean , then
.
Since
is the distance from a given number to the mean, one way to
interpret this property is as saying that the numbers to the left of the mean
are balanced by the numbers to the right of the mean. The mean is the only
single number for which the residuals (deviations from the estimate) sum to
zero.

If it is required to use a single number as a "typical" value for a set of known

numbers
, then the arithmetic mean of the numbers does this
best, in the sense of minimizing the sum of squared deviations from the
typical value: the sum of
. (It follows that the sample mean is also
the best single predictor in the sense of having the lowest root mean squared
error.)[3] If the arithmetic mean of a population of numbers is desired, then
the estimate of it that is unbiased is the arithmetic mean of a sample drawn
from the population.

Examples
A pediatrician has four 9-year-old patients who are boys. Their heights in inches are 54, 57, 53
and 52. She finds out that according to national statistics, the average height of a nine year old
boy is 55 inches, or 4 feet and 7 inches. What is the mean or average height of these four boys?
Since we are considering n = 4 boys, we add the four heights together and divide the result by 4:

let us consider the monthly salary of 10 employees of a firm: 2500, 2700, 2400, 2300, 2550,
2650, 2750, 2450, 2600, 2400. The arithmetic mean is

1. The heights of five runners are 160 cm, 137 cm, 149 cm, 153 cm and 161 cm respectively.
Find the mean height per runner.
Solution:
Mean height = Sum of the heights of the runners/number of runners
= (160 + 137 + 149 + 153 + 161)/5 cm
= 760/5 cm
= 152 cm.
Hence, the mean height is 152 cm.

2. Find the mean of the first five prime numbers.

Solution:
The first five prime numbers are 2, 3, 5, 7 and 11.
Mean = Sum of the first five prime numbers/number of prime numbers
= (2 + 3 + 5 + 7 + 11)/5
= 28/5
= 5.6
Hence, their mean is 5.6

Harmonic Mean
the harmonic mean is one of several kinds of average, and in particular one of the Pythagorean
means. Typically, it is appropriate for situations when the average of rates is desired.
The harmonic mean can be expressed as the reciprocal of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals.
As a simple example, the harmonic mean of 1, 2, and 4 is

The harmonic mean H of the positive real numbers

is defined to be