Magnitude and Phase
In using the Laplace, Z-, or Fourier transforms, the frequency spectrum is complex, describing the magnitude and phase of a signal, or of the response of a system, as a function of frequency. In many applications, phase information is not important. By discarding the phase information it is possible to simplify the information in a frequency domain representation to generate a frequency spectrum or spectral density. A spectrum analyzer is a device that displays the spectrum.
The power spectral density is a frequency-domain description that can be applied to a large class of signals that are neither periodic nor square-integrable; to have a power spectral density, a signal needs only to be the output of a wide-sense stationary random process.
Read more about this topic: Frequency Domain
Famous quotes containing the words magnitude and/or phase:
“Government is either organized benevolence or organized madness; its peculiar magnitude permits no shading.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“It no longer makes sense to speak of “feeding problems” or “sleep problems” or “negative behavior” is if they were distinct categories, but to speak of “problems of development” and to search for the meaning of feeding and sleep disturbances or behavior disorders in the developmental phase which has produced them.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)