[Arny Krueger]

"Mike Rivers" wrote in message

On 11/20/2010 3:53 PM, rickman wrote:

I don't recall any such restriction on N. Certainly the
measurement has just as much meaning with N = 1 as any
greater N. Think of it as a limit as N approaches 1
then. The point is that it is as valid a measurement
for a single point as it is for many points. It
represents the equivalent voltage that would produce the
same power as DC of the same voltage.

Consider the effective value of RMS. It's the amount of
heat can be produced by the electrical energy. If you
have only one sample, no matter how high it is, do you
really think it will warm up your coffee?

Depends on the sample rate. If the sample rate is one sample every 10
minutes... ;-)