Simple Nature - Light and Matter

The average power is

Pav=

energy transferred in one full cycle

time for one full cycle

=

IoVoT/ 2

T

=

IoVo

2

,

i.e., the average is half the maximum. The power varies from 0

toIoVo, and it spends equal amounts of time above and below the

maximum, so it isn’t surprising that the average power is half-way

in between zero and the maximum. Summarizing, we have

Pav=

IoVo

2

[average power in a resistor]

for a resistor.

RMS quantities

Suppose one day the electric company decided to start supplying

your electricity as DC rather than AC. How would the DC voltage

have to be related to the amplitudeVoof the AC voltage previously

used if they wanted your lightbulbs to have the same brightness as

before? The resistance of the bulb,R, is a fixed value, so we need

to relate the power to the voltage and the resistance, eliminating

the current. In the DC case, this givesP=IV= (V/R)V =V^2 /R.

(For DC,PandPavare the same.) In the AC case,Pav=IoVo/2 =

Vo^2 / 2 R. Since there is no factor of 1/2 in the DC case, the same

power could be provided with a DC voltage that was smaller by a

factor of 1/

√

2. Although you will hear people say that household
   voltage in the U.S. is 110 V, its amplitude is actually (110 V)√ ×
   2 ≈160 V. The reason for referring toVo/

√

2 as “the” voltage is

that people who are naive about AC circuits can plugVo/

√

2 into

a familiar DC equation likeP =V^2 /Rand get the rightaverage

answer. The quantityVo/

√

2 is called the “RMS” voltage, which

stands for “root mean square.” The idea is that if you square the

functionV(t), take its average (mean) over one cycle, and then take

the square root of that average, you getVo/

√

2. Many digital meters
   provide RMS readouts for measuring AC voltages and currents.

A capacitor

For a capacitor, the calculation starts out the same, but ends up

with a twist. If the voltage varies as a cosine,Vocosωt, then the

relationI=CdV/dttells us that the current will be some constant

multiplied by minus the sine,−Vosinωt. The integral we did in the

case of a resistor now becomes

E=

∫T

0

−IoVosinωtcosωtdt,

634 Chapter 10 Fields