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Kyle,
It sounds to me like you are somehow trying to treat energy and amplitude as independent quantities. Fundamentally, it comes down to this: In the far field, the energy (per unit area) IS the amplitude squared. Thus, since E ~1/r^2, A ~ 1/r.
John Mallinckrodt
Cal Poly Pomona
The amplitude squared IS the energy.
On Jun 27, 2011, at 6:31 AM, Kyle Forinash wrote:
John;_______________________________________________
This has helped but I'm still confused. Even if energy (amplitude) were
constant we would expect energy per area to drop as 1/r^2 because the
sphere surface area is expanding. If the amplitude is also decreasing as
1/r then isn't the energy (amplitude squared) per area decreasing as 1/r^4?
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