In
mathematics and
statistics, the
arithmetic mean (, stress on third syllable of "arithmetic"), or simply the
mean or
average when the context is clear, is the sum of a collection of numbers divided by the number of numbers in the collection. The collection is often a set of results of an
experiment, or a set of results from a
survey. The term "arithmetic mean" is preferred in some contexts in mathematics and statistics because it helps distinguish it from other
means, such as the
geometric mean and the
harmonic mean.