Modern Meaning in The Physical Sciences
In the 17th century the word spectrum was introduced into optics, referring to the range of colors observed when white light was dispersed through a prism. Soon the term referred to a plot of light intensity or power as a function of frequency or wavelength, also known as a spectral density.
The term spectrum was expanded to apply to other waves, such as sound waves that could also be measured as a function of frequency. The term now applies to any signal that can be measured or decomposed along a continuous variable such as energy in electron spectroscopy or mass to charge ratio in mass spectrometry. Spectrum is also used to refer to a graphical representation of the as a function of the dependent variable.
Read more about this topic: Spectrum
Famous quotes containing the words modern, meaning, physical and/or sciences:
“Chaucer is fresh and modern still, and no dust settles on his true passages. It lightens along the line, and we are reminded that flowers have bloomed, and birds sung, and hearts beaten in England. Before the earnest gaze of the reader, the rust and moss of time gradually drop off, and the original green life is revealed. He was a homely and domestic man, and did breathe quite as modern men do.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Losing life is a trifle and I will have that courage when I need it. But to see the meaning of this life vanishing, our reason for existing disappearing, that is what I cannot stand. No one can live without reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“The preservation of health is a duty. Few seem conscious that there is such a thing as physical morality.”
—Herbert Spencer (1820–1903)
“These modern ingenious sciences and arts do not affect me as those more venerable arts of hunting and fishing, and even of husbandry in its primitive and simple form; as ancient and honorable trades as the sun and moon and winds pursue, coeval with the faculties of man, and invented when these were invented. We do not know their John Gutenberg, or Richard Arkwright, though the poets would fain make them to have been gradually learned and taught.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)