Reference should be made to codes and standards.

eg IEC 60027, Letter Symbols in Electrical

Technology

Here are tables of widely accepted symbols. They are meant to be a guideline: using the same symbols
for the same things in different articles will increase their consistency, making them easier to understand
and to improve. If you are looking for the symbol for something that is not on the list, just check whether a
particular symbol has been already chosen, and create your own. If anybody will disagree with it, discuss
it on the talk page.

It is certainly not an exhaustive list, nor is it in any particular order.

Waves and waveforms

Symbol Meaning SI Units of Measure

frequency hertz (cycles per second)

angular frequency radians per second

wave number radians per meter

wavelength meters per cycle

period seconds per cycle

Optics and photonics

Symbol Meaning SI Units of Measure

refractive index dimensionless

speed of light in vacuum meters per second

speed of light in material medium meters per second

frequency hertz (cycles per second)

angular frequency radians per second

wave number radians per meter

wavelength meters per cycle

radius of curvature meters

reflection coefficient dimensionless

absorption coefficient dimensionless

reflectivity dimensionless
 transmissivity dimensionless
Electromagnetics
Symbol Meaning SI Units of Measure

Electric field volts per meter

Magnetic field amperes per meter

Electric displacement coulombs per square meter

teslas or
Magnetic flux density
webers per square meter

Electric flux voltmeters

Magnetic flux webers

Polarization density coulombs per square meter

Magnetization amperes per meter

Current density amperes per square meter

Electric permittivity farads per meter

Magnetic permeability henries per meter

conductivity siemens per meter

susceptibility dimensionless

Electric charge coulombs

Electric charge density coulombs per cubic meter

Electric potential volts

Magnetic scalar potential amperes

Magnetic vector potential webers per meter

Electrical circuits
Symbol Meaning SI Units of Measure

electric current amperes

voltage or electric potential difference volts

electric current complex amplitude coulombs

voltage complex amplitude webers

Resistance ohms

Conductance siemens or mhos

Capacitance farads
 Inductance henries

Impedance ohms

Reactance ohms

Admittance siemens or mhos

radius meters
Signals and systems
Symbol Meaning SI Units of Measure

time seconds

the imaginary unit dimensionless

base of the natural logarithm

dimensionless
2.71828...
ratio of the circumference
to the diameter of a circle dimensionless
3.1415927...

time constant seconds

exponential decay constant nepers per second

or attenuation coefficient (1/second)
instantaneous angle in argument of
radians (dimensionless)
sinusoid

phase angle radians (dimensionless)

quality factor dimensionless

Bandwidth hertz

damping factor dimensionless

Correlation between x and y dimensionless

Standard deviation of x same units as x

Mean value of x same units as x

Expected value of the random

same units as X
variable X
nth power of the domain's
nth moment of a function
units

Autocorrelation of random process X(t) watts

Power spectral density of random

watts per hertz
process X(t)
For electronics formulas are very important to calculate the behavior of a circuit.
In electronics the following units are used:
Symbol Quantity Symbol Unit
U Voltage V Volt
I Stroom A Ampere
R Resistance Ohm
C Capacity F Farad
L Induction H Henry
P Power W Watt
t Time s seconde
f Frequency Hz Hertz
Q Charge C Coulomb

Often prefixes are used to indicate the magnitude of a number:

Short Prefix Multiplication factor
M Mega x1,000,000
k Kilo x1,000
m Milli x0.001 (/1,000)
Micro x0.000,001 (/1,000,000)
n Nano x0.000,000,001 (/1,000,000,000)
p Pico x0.000,000,000,001 (/1,000,000,000,000)
So mV means millivolt, a thousandth volt. And MV means megavolt, one million volts.
Sometimes another notation is used instead of for example 2.3 M Ohm, namely 2M2
(the numbers after the M are decimals)
Formulas
This is the relation between current, voltage, and resistance:

    and   and U=IR

This rule is known as Ohm's law.
Power can be calculated with this formula:
P = UI
And so:
P = I2 R

Current is nothing more then the flow of charge so:

  
The number of units (Coulomb) that passes per second is the current in Amperes. 

You can use this formula to calculate the current through a capacitor:

  
 means difference, so the current is the difference in voltage, divided by the passed
time, multiplied by the capacity.
I-U characteristic
When describing the exact behavior of a component people often use a graph where
the voltage is compared to the current. Here is an example of such a graph:

This is the graph of a resistor of 100 Ohm. Horizontally is the voltage, and vertically the
current. When the voltage on point a is measured in comparison to point B, and it is
negative then that means that the voltage on point B is higher. In the graph this is the
part left of the vertical axis.