what does RMS mean, as in root mean squared.?

Answer 1

I think that it's a good question.

There's 3 operations involved.
1. you square something
2. you get its averager (or mean)
3. you take the square root.

As an exampe, lets say that you measure temperature which is supposed to be constant at 50 deg. You get n measurements

To get the rms:

1. Calc the n differences between measured T and 50 deg
2. Square each difference, add them up, and divide this sum by n to get the mean of the square
2. Take the square root.

It's a measure of how far your observation differ from what you predicted. It's used extensively in statistics.

It's also used in alternating current electricity. The average of a sin wave is 0 so to get something useful, you square the value and get the average, and take the square root.

Anytime you have something that varies and has a 0 average is better characterized by rms.

Answer 2

In lame terms the mean of these numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 would be 1+2+3+4+5 / 5 which is 15 / 5 = 3. The root mean square answer is 1squared + 2squared + 3squared + 4squared + 5squared divided by 5 and then all square rooted. In this case it equals 3.32 I've seen it used in physics to find a more accurate real value. You'll find the rms number will always be more than the mean number. e.g. 3.32 is greater than 3.

Answer 3

Great Question;


root mean square

In mathematics, root mean square (abbreviated RMS or rms), also known as the quadratic mean, is a statistical measure of the magnitude of a varying quantity. It's especially useful when variates are positive and negative, e.g. waves.

It can be calculated for a series of discrete values or for a continuously varying function. The name comes from the fact that it is the square root of the mean of the squares of the values. It is a power mean with the power t = 2.

Read more about the root mean square here:

Answer 4

RMS is a way to measure the power of an alternating current power source. An audio signal sent to speakers is simply alternating current power, and RMS is a good way of understanding how much power can be supplied by an amplifier. RMS figures are often grossly exaggerated. You arrive at an RMS power measurement by analyzing the power wave and doing math on it. There are tools which can give RMS measurements.

Answer 5

In electrical terms RMS has the value of 0.707 of the peak voltage.If this is for a sound system then the RMS figure will be the true one,many systems are sold on peak sound output.

Answer 6

The root-mean-square (RMS) of a variate , sometimes called the quadratic mean, is the square root of the mean squared value of :

Answer 7

great a question that already has the answer in it. RMS also exists for continous non-discrete quantities. In case of continous quantities RMS is calculated from Variance
(Var(X)) where X is a function of a random Variable