Amplitude

Often the greatest magnitude at a given point of any spatially and temporally varying physical quantity governed by a wave equation; can also mean the spatial part of a time-harmonic wave function.
For example, in the time-harmonic (or sinusoidal) scalar wave function with circular frequency ω,

where φ(x) is the (complex) amplitude of the wave, although the modulus of φ also may be called its amplitude. The (complex) amplitude of the scalar plane harmonic wave

with wavenumber k and initial phase θ is A exp(ikx - iθ), the modulus of which, , is also called the amplitude of the wave. In its most general sense, amplitude means extent or size. Thus the amplitude of a wave is some measure of its size.

• INDEX
• A
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z
• 0
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• 5
• 6
• 7
• 8
• 9

Often the greatest magnitude at a given point of any spatially and temporally varying physical quantity governed by a wave equation; can also mean the spatial part of a time-harmonic wave function.