amplitude

The concept of amplitude it has several uses. The first meaning mentioned in the dictionary elaborated by the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) refers to widening, stretching, or elongation of something.

The amplitude, in this way, can refer to the capacity that a person in order to understand, tolerate, accept or value different issues. For example: "We need teachers with greater mental breadth, who are willing to understand the new habits of children", "The manager of the company has demonstrated his breadth of criteria when evaluating the different situations of the employees", "This man lacks breadth: he does not accept that society has changed in recent years".

In this context it can be understood as a synonym for opening mental, since it refers to the capacity that each person has to accept the coexistence of different concepts or ideas, without one canceling the other. In the examples in the previous paragraph, the need for this predisposition in the teaching body is mentioned, something fundamental for children to grow up in an environment free of prejudices, which allows them to know themselves and enjoy their differences, instead of suffering for they.

On the other hand there is the closure, which can be defined as the impossibility of understanding a concept, either by prejudice or out of ignorance. This characteristic of certain people who refuse to open up is also known as blindness or obstinacy, and is one of the worst enemies of cultural progress.

Individuals who lack broad-mindedness reject those they consider different, since they do not understand that they are also in the eyes of others. The origin of this contempt is usually a very deep fear, probably of being treated in the way that they themselves adopt, and this makes it very contradictory. Thanks to the amplitude comes the change, another of the enemies of closed people, and this leads to the growth and evolution of society.

The idea amplitude is also used with respect to a difference that can be registered numerically between two given values: "The local team largely surpassed Spain and qualified for the next round of the tournament", "Political analysts were surprised by the extent of the defeat of the ruling party in the last elections", "This region is characterized by its thermal amplitude: the days are hot, while very low temperatures are recorded at night".

It is important to note that the concept of amplitude, when used to indicate the difference between two values numerical, it is relative. This is because certain parameters, specific to each field, must be taken into account in order to determine if the resulting number is large.

When studying the temperature changes of a region between the hours of day and night, to continue with one of the previous examples, a difference of 1 degree centigrade cannot be taken as wide, but values ​​well above 10 are necessary. so that they generate a considerable impact. On the other hand, in a calculation in which the minimum is 0 and the maximum is 1, oscillations of 0.8 they do speak of breadth. We must remember that units They are arbitrary, since they are invented by human beings to study natural phenomena.

On the ground of the physical, the amplitude is called variation that exists in a quantity that changes over time. The magnitude can be calculated in an electromagnetic signal or in wave or oscillatory movements.

It is known as modulated amplitude to a technique which, in electronic communication, consists of transmitting information by means of a transverse wave whose amplitude varies depending on the data it sends.