Posted: Apr 15, 2017 12:06 pm
crank wrote:There isn't anything in light that could be considered a literal 'height'. It works with fluid waves because the energy in such waves is in the height, or you could say the waves are a positional thing, so the height is the amplitude. How is 'amplitude' twice the height? Isn't that the difference between peak-to-peak vs 0-to-peak? Wave heights are usually considered to be from sea level, so 8 ft waves should have 8 ft troughs also. I think that's correct??
Height in waves as a physical descriptor seems to sometimes work from trough-to-peak and sometimes 0-to-peak. The latter seems to occur less often, although I do agree makes more sense.
Thats interesting to know then, that amplitude in electromagnetic waves isn't a literal height.