In mathematics, the geometric mean is a type of mean or average, which indicates the

central tendency or typical value of a set of numbers by using the product of their values (as
opposed to the arithmetic mean which uses their sum). The geometric mean is defined as
the nth root of the product of n numbers, i.e., for a set of numbers x1, x2, ..., xn, the geometric
mean is defined as

For instance, the geometric mean of two numbers, say 2 and 8, is just the square root of
their product, that is,

. As another example, the geometric mean of the

three numbers 4, 1, and 1/32 is the cube root of their product (1/8), which is 1/2, that
is,

A geometric mean is often used when comparing different itemsfinding a single "figure
of merit" for these itemswhen each item has multiple properties that have different
numeric ranges.[1] For example, the geometric mean can give a meaningful "average" to
compare two companies which are each rated at 0 to 5 for their environmental
sustainability, and are rated at 0 to 100 for their financial viability. If an arithmetic mean
were used instead of a geometric mean, the financial viability is given more weight
because its numeric range is largerso a small percentage change in the financial
rating (e.g. going from 80 to 90) makes a much larger difference in the arithmetic mean
than a large percentage change in environmental sustainability (e.g. going from 2 to 5).
The use of a geometric mean "normalizes" the ranges being averaged, so that no range
dominates the weighting, and a given percentage change in any of the properties has
the same effect on the geometric mean. So, a 20% change in environmental
sustainability from 4 to 4.8 has the same effect on the geometric mean as a 20% change
in financial viability from 60 to 72.
The geometric mean can be understood in terms of geometry. The geometric mean of
two numbers,

and , is the length of one side of a square whose area is equal to the

area of a rectangle with sides of lengths

and . Similarly, the geometric mean of three

numbers, , , and , is the length of one edge of a cube whose volume is the same as
that of a cuboid with sides whose lengths are equal to the three given numbers.
The geometric mean applies only to numbers of the same sign.[2] It is also often used for
a set of numbers whose values are meant to be multiplied together or are exponential in
nature, such as data on the growth of the human population or interest rates of a
financial investment.

The geometric mean is also one of the three classical Pythagorean means, together with
the aforementioned arithmetic mean and the harmonic mean. For all positive data sets
containing at least one pair of unequal values, the harmonic mean is always the least of
the three means, while the arithmetic mean is always the greatest of the three and the
geometric mean is always in between (see Inequality of arithmetic and geometric
means.)