ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Quadratic mean

The quadratic mean is a way of estimating the average or typical value of a set of numbers by squaring each number, adding up the squares, dividing by the total number of numbers, and then taking the square root of the result.

Imagine you have some blocks with different heights. You want to find out what the average height is, but just adding up all the heights and dividing by the number of blocks won't really give you a good idea. You might end up with a value that doesn't really represent what the typical height is.

So instead, you decide to use the quadratic mean. You take each block's height and square it. Then you add up all the squared heights. Next, you divide the total by the number of blocks. Finally, you take the square root of that result.

The result you get is the quadratic mean. This will give you a better idea of what the typical height is, because it takes into account the fact that some blocks are much taller than others.

The quadratic mean is also known as the root mean square (RMS) or the power mean. It is often used in physics and engineering to calculate things like the average speed of particles or the average voltage in a circuit.

In summary, the quadratic mean is a way of finding the average or typical value of a set of numbers by squaring each number, adding up the squares, dividing by the total number of numbers, and then taking the square root of the result.