I'm a technical translator who recently undertook translation of documents related to signal processing. Being a novice in the field, I'm searching the web for terminology and concepts.
It appears that local web content includes two instances of translation for "power spectrum":
- (electric power) spectrum
- (power) spectrum
Upon my query, the requestor says it's not appropriate to translate "power spectrum" as "(electric power) spectrum". But there are quite a number of translation as "(electric power) spectrum", so I'd like to know the exact definition of "power" in the "power spectrum" to make sure that the translation as "(electric power) spectrum" is wrong.
The following is a Wikipedia page that my requestor provided as a reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_density#Power_spectral_density
... For continuous signals over all time, such as stationary processes, one must rather define the power spectral density (PSD); this describes how power of a signal or time series is distributed over frequency, as in the simple example given previously. Here, power can be the actual physical power, or more often, for convenience with abstract signals, is simply identified with the squared value of the signal.
My questions are as follows:
- Is the highlighted part applicable as definition of "power" in "power spectrum" as well?
- If so, is "(electric power) spectrum" incorrect translation because the "power" spans other types of physical power in addition to "electric power" (and also because "power" can imply the squared value)?
- Otherwise, could someone provide better explanation?
Thank you.