Because power is proportional to the square of the instanteous voltage, you have to square the voltage instant by instant before taking the average. Then you have to take the square root of the average of the squares to get the RMS voltage. This means that both the negative and positive cycles will end up positive before averaging, so ti doesn't average to 0. I.E. -2 * -2 = +4.
Marshall "M. G. Devour" wrote: > > If you replace "average" with RMS in what you wrote it would all be > > correct. However average and RMS are NOT the same thing. ... > > The average is approximately .90 times the RMS value for a sine wave. > > > > See http://www.traceengineering.com/technical/tech_notes/tn2.html for > > more information on this relationship. > > Thank you. I appreciate the connection. Now, how does one explain the > concept of RMS to a non-technical person other than as a fancy > approximation of "average of the voltage available to do work", which > is what I was intending in my message? > > Be well, > > Mike D. > [Mike Devour, Citizen, Patriot, Libertarian] > [[email protected] ] > [Speaking only for myself... ] > > -- > The silver-list is a moderated forum for discussion of colloidal silver. > > To join or quit silver-list or silver-digest send an e-mail message to: > [email protected] -or- [email protected] > with the word subscribe or unsubscribe in the SUBJECT line. > > To post, address your message to: [email protected] > Silver-list archive: http://escribe.com/health/thesilverlist/index.html > List maintainer: Mike Devour <[email protected]>
