Source code for simplestatistics.statistics.harmonic_mean

"""
Implements harmonic_mean() function.
"""

from .mean import mean

[docs]def harmonic_mean(x): """ The `harmonic mean`_ is a kind of average that is calculated as the reciprocal_ of the arithmetic mean of the reciprocals. It is appropriate when calculating averages of rates_. .. _`harmonic mean`: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harmonic_mean .. _reciprocal: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplicative_inverse .. _rates: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rate_(mathematics) Equation: .. math:: H = \\frac{n}{\\frac{1}{x_1}+\\frac{1}{x_2}+\\ldots+\\frac{1}{x_n}} = \\frac{n}{\\sum\\limits_{i=1}^n \\frac{1}{x_i}} Args: x: A list or tuple of numerical objects. Returns: A numerical object. Raises: TypeError: If the user passes something other than list or tuple. Examples: >>> harmonic_mean([1, 2, 4]) 1.7142857142857142 >>> harmonic_mean(7) Traceback (most recent call last): ... TypeError: harmonic_mean() expects a list or a tuple. """ if type(x) not in [list, tuple]: raise TypeError('harmonic_mean() expects a list or a tuple.') reciprocals = [1 / float(num) for num in x] # sum_of_reciprocals = sum(reciprocals[:]) return(1 / mean(reciprocals))