Is there a particular reason why the harmonic mean would be a particularly suitable tool for combining physical and economic estimates? I’ve spent only a few seconds trying to think of one, failed, and had trouble motivating myself to look harder because on the face of it it seems like for most problems for which you might want to do this you’re about equally likely to be finding any given quantity as its reciprocal, which suggests that a general preference for the harmonic mean is unlikely to be a good strategy—what am I missing?
I recommend trying to take the harmonic mean of a physical and an economic estimate when appropriate.
I recommend doing everything when appropriate.
Is there a particular reason why the harmonic mean would be a particularly suitable tool for combining physical and economic estimates? I’ve spent only a few seconds trying to think of one, failed, and had trouble motivating myself to look harder because on the face of it it seems like for most problems for which you might want to do this you’re about equally likely to be finding any given quantity as its reciprocal, which suggests that a general preference for the harmonic mean is unlikely to be a good strategy—what am I missing?
Can I have a representative example of a problem where this is appropriate?
So, what you’re saying is that the larger number is less likely to be accurate the further it is from the smaller number? Why is that?