Template talk:SI radiometry units

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Added "confusingly called intensity" to radiance as well. Per steradian is used in Allens "Astrophysical Quantities", and Chandrasekhar's "Radiative Transfer" which are classics.PAR 07:58, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

Included per frequency for spectral radiance and irradiance. I believe per wavelength is favored by experimentalists, per Hertz by theoreticians. Also, I removed "cubic meter" because even though the units are meter3 this is not a "volume". Strictly speaking the meters in the area calculation are different units that the meters of wavelength. (See H.E. Huntley, "Dimensional analysis".) PAR 18:09, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Shouldn't they be watts-PER, not watts-TIMES?

Am I nuts, or shouldn't ALL of the entries in the abbreviation column be W/whatever (watts PER whatever), not W·whatever (watts TIMES whatever)?

If I'm nuts, my apologies... but acting on WP:BOLD I'm going to change them, and see what happens. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:39, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Never mind, I figured it out... yeah, that's what the minus signs on the superscripts are for, right. Sorry. Dpbsmith (talk) 23:50, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Intensity and intensity are not the same thing

Note that the article Intensity (physics) is about intensity as power per unit area. The links to the usage of this term to mean irradiance, radiant exitance, and radiant emittance are correct. The comment that radiance is sometimes called intensity should not be linked to the article Intensity (physics), because Wikipedia organizes information by concept not by name. If there were an article on intensity as power per steradian per square meter, it would be appropriate to link to that article. In the absence of that, no link is appropriate. Essentially, there are two distinct meanings of "intensity" here (and a third elsewhere in the template). While they have the same name, they are distinct things and should not be confused (which is the point of that note in the first place). The intensity article also discusses this confusion of terminology, of course.--Srleffler 15:51, 26 June 2006 (UTC)