Amplitude
Article
Amplitude is a measure of the magnitude of change in an oscillating or varying quantity. For a wave, it commonly describes the maximum displacement from an equilibrium or mean value.
Amplitude may represent displacement, pressure, voltage, current, electric-field strength, probability amplitude, or another physical quantity. Its units therefore depend on the system being measured.
For a sinusoidal wave, peak amplitude is the distance from the centre line to a maximum. Other measures include peak-to-peak amplitude, root-mean-square amplitude, and envelope amplitude.
The energy or power carried by many waves is proportional to the square of amplitude. Amplitude is therefore central to acoustics, optics, electronics, vibration analysis, communications, and quantum mechanics.
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- Source / publisher: Wikipedia
- URL type: WWW
- Credits: Wikipedia
- URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amplitude