Wave
In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...
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21 cm line
The hydrogen line, 21 centimeter line, or H I line is the electromagnetic radiation spectral line that is created by a change in the energy state of neutral hydrogen atoms. This electromagnetic radiation has a precise frequency of , w ...
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Abbe prism
In optics, an Abbe prism, named for its inventor, the German physicist Ernst Abbe, is a type of ''constant deviation dispersive prism'' similar to a Pellin–Broca prism.
Structure
The prism consists of a block of glass forming a right prism ...
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Absorption spectroscopy
Absorption spectroscopy refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating fi ...
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Absorption spectrum
Absorption spectroscopy refers to spectroscopic techniques that measure the absorption of radiation, as a function of frequency or wavelength, due to its interaction with a sample. The sample absorbs energy, i.e., photons, from the radiating ...
Acoustic wave
Acoustic waves are a type of energy propagation through a medium by means of adiabatic loading and unloading. Important quantities for describing acoustic waves are acoustic pressure, particle velocity, particle displacement and acoustic intensi ...
Acoustics
Acoustics is a branch of physics that deals with the study of mechanical waves in gases, liquids, and solids including topics such as vibration, sound, ultrasound and infrasound. A scientist who works in the field of acoustics is an acousticia ...
Acousto-optic modulator
An acousto-optic modulator (AOM), also called a Bragg cell or an acousto-optic deflector (AOD), uses the acousto-optic effect to diffract and shift the frequency of light using sound waves (usually at radio-frequency). They are used in lasers ...
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Acousto-optics
Acousto-optics is a branch of physics that studies the interactions between sound waves and light waves, especially the diffraction of laser light by ultrasound (or sound in general) through an ultrasonic grating.
Introduction
Optics has had a v ...
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Airy disc
In optics, the Airy disk (or Airy disc) and Airy pattern are descriptions of the best- focused spot of light that a perfect lens with a circular aperture can make, limited by the diffraction of light. The Airy disk is of importance in physics, ...
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Airy wave theory
In fluid dynamics, Airy wave theory (often referred to as linear wave theory) gives a linearised description of the propagation of gravity waves on the surface of a homogeneous fluid layer. The theory assumes that the fluid layer has a uniform mea ...
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Alfvén wave
In plasma physics, an Alfvén wave, named after Hannes Alfvén, is a type of plasma wave in which ions oscillate in response to a restoring force provided by an effective tension on the magnetic field lines.
Definition
An Alfvén wave is ...
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Alpha waves
Alpha waves, or the alpha rhythm, are neural oscillations in the frequency range of 8–12 Hz likely originating from the synchronous and coherent (in phase or constructive) electrical activity of thalamic pacemaker cells in humans. Historica ...
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Amphidromic point
An amphidromic point, also called a tidal node, is a geographical location which has zero tidal amplitude for one harmonic constituent of the tide. The tidal range (the peak-to-peak amplitude, or the height difference between high tide and l ...
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Amplitude
The amplitude of a periodic variable is a measure of its change in a single period (such as time or spatial period). The amplitude of a non-periodic signal is its magnitude compared with a reference value. There are various definitions of am ...
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Amplitude modulation
Amplitude modulation (AM) is a modulation technique used in electronic communication, most commonly for transmitting messages with a radio wave. In amplitude modulation, the amplitude (signal strength) of the wave is varied in proportion to ...
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Animal echolocation
Echolocation, also called bio sonar, is a biological sonar used by several animal species.
Echolocating animals emit calls out to the environment
and listen to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects near them. They use these ...
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Antarctic Circumpolar Wave
The Antarctic Circumpolar Wave (ACW) is a coupled ocean/atmosphere wave that circles the Southern Ocean in approximately eight years at . Since it is a wave-2 phenomenon (there are two ridges and two troughs in a latitude circle) at each fixed po ...
Aquamarine Power
Aquamarine Power was a wave energy company, founded in 2005 to commercialise the Oyster wave energy converter, a device to capture energy from near-shore waves. The company's head offices were in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company ceased to trade ...
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Arrayed waveguide grating
{{Unreferenced, date=April 2019
Arrayed waveguide gratings (AWG) are commonly used as Optical add-drop multiplexer, optical (de)multiplexers in wavelength division multiplexing, wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems. These devices are capa ...
Atmospheric wave
An atmospheric wave is a periodic disturbance in the fields of atmospheric variables (like surface pressure or geopotential height, temperature, or wind velocity) which may either propagate ('' traveling wave'') or not (''standing wave''). Atmos ...
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Atmospheric waveguide {{Unreferenced, date=December 2008
An atmospheric waveguide is an Earth's atmosphere, atmospheric Fluid dynamics, flow feature that improves the propagation of certain atmospheric waves.
The effect arises because wave parameters such as group veloc ...
Atomic clock
An atomic clock is a clock that measures time by monitoring the resonant frequency of atoms. It is based on atoms having different energy levels. Electron states in an atom are associated with different energy levels, and in transitions betwe ...
Audience wave
The wave (known as a Mexican wave or stadium wave outside of North America) is an example of metachronal rhythm achieved in a packed stadium when successive groups of spectators briefly stand, yell, and raise their arms. Immediately upon s ...
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Autowave
Autowaves are self-supporting non-linear waves in active media (i.e. those that provide distributed energy sources). The term is generally used in processes where the waves carry relatively low energy, which is necessary for synchronization or ...
Babinet's principle In physics, Babinet's principle states that the diffraction pattern from an opaque body is identical to that from a hole of the same size and shape except for the overall forward beam intensity. It was formulated in the 1800s by French physicist Ja ...
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Backward wave oscillator
A backward wave oscillator (BWO), also called carcinotron or backward wave tube, is a vacuum tube that is used to generate microwaves up to the terahertz range. Belonging to the traveling-wave tube family, it is an oscillator with a wide electr ...
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Bandwidth-limited pulse
A bandwidth-limited pulse (also known as Fourier-transform-limited pulse, or more commonly, transform-limited pulse) is a pulse of a wave that has the minimum possible duration for a given spectral bandwidth. Bandwidth-limited pulses have a con ...
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beat
Beat, beats or beating may refer to:
Common uses
* Patrol, or beat, a group of personnel assigned to monitor a specific area
** Beat (police), the territory that a police officer patrols
** Gay beat, an area frequented by gay men
* Battery (c ...
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Berry phase In classical and quantum mechanics, geometric phase is a phase difference acquired over the course of a cycle, when a system is subjected to cyclic adiabatic processes, which results from the geometrical properties of the parameter space of the ...
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Bessel beam
A Bessel beam is a wave whose amplitude is described by a Bessel function of the first kind. Electromagnetic, acoustic, gravitational, and matter waves can all be in the form of Bessel beams. A true Bessel beam is non-diffractive. This mean ...
Black hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...
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Blazar
A blazar is an active galactic nucleus (AGN) with a relativistic jet (a jet composed of ionized matter traveling at nearly the speed of light) directed very nearly towards an observer. Relativistic beaming of electromagnetic radiation from t ...
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Bloch's theorem
In condensed matter physics, Bloch's theorem states that solutions to the Schrödinger equation in a periodic potential take the form of a plane wave modulated by a periodic function. The theorem is named after the physicist Felix Bloch, who d ...
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Blueshift
In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase i ...
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Boussinesq approximation (water waves)
In fluid dynamics, the Boussinesq approximation for water waves is an approximation valid for weakly non-linear and fairly long waves. The approximation is named after Joseph Boussinesq, who first derived them in response to the observation by ...
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Bow wave
A bow wave is the wave that forms at the bow of a ship when it moves through the water. As the bow wave spreads out, it defines the outer limits of a ship's wake. A large bow wave slows the ship down, is a risk to smaller boats, and in a harbor ...
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Bragg diffraction
In physics and chemistry , Bragg's law, Georg Wulff, Wulff–Bragg's condition or Laue–Bragg interference, a special case of Laue diffraction, gives the angles for coherent scattering of waves from a crystal lattice. It encompasses the superposit ...
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Bragg's law
In physics and chemistry , Bragg's law, Wulff–Bragg's condition or Laue–Bragg interference, a special case of Laue diffraction, gives the angles for coherent scattering of waves from a crystal lattice. It encompasses the superposition of wave ...
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Breaking wave
In fluid dynamics, a breaking wave or breaker is a wave whose amplitude reaches a critical level at which large amounts of wave energy transform into turbulent kinetic energy. At this point, simple physical models that describe wave dynam ...
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Bremsstrahlung
''Bremsstrahlung'' (), from "to brake" and "radiation"; i.e., "braking radiation" or "deceleration radiation", is electromagnetic radiation produced by the deceleration of a charged particle when deflected by another charged particle, typical ...
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Electromagnetic radiation
In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visib ...
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Brillouin scattering Brillouin scattering (also known as Brillouin light scattering or BLS), named after Léon Brillouin, refers to the interaction of light with the material waves in a medium (e.g. electrostriction and magnetostriction). It is mediated by the refra ...
Business cycle
Business cycles are intervals of expansion followed by recession in economic activity. These changes have implications for the welfare of the broad population as well as for private institutions. Typically business cycles are measured by examin ...
C
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Capillary wave
A capillary wave is a wave traveling along the phase boundary of a fluid, whose dynamics and phase velocity are dominated by the effects of surface tension.
Capillary waves are common in nature, and are often referred to as ripples. The wav ...
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Carrier wave
In telecommunications, a carrier wave, carrier signal, or just carrier, is a waveform (usually sinusoidal) that is modulated (modified) with an information-bearing signal for the purpose of conveying information. This carrier wave usually has ...
Chirp
A chirp is a signal in which the frequency increases (''up-chirp'') or decreases (''down-chirp'') with time. In some sources, the term ''chirp'' is used interchangeably with sweep signal. It is commonly applied to sonar, radar, and laser syste ...
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Ernst Chladni
Ernst Florens Friedrich Chladni (, , ; 30 November 1756 – 3 April 1827) was a German physicist and musician. His most important work, for which he is sometimes labeled as the father of acoustics, included research on vibrating plates an ...
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Circular polarization
In electrodynamics, circular polarization of an electromagnetic wave is a polarization state in which, at each point, the electromagnetic field of the wave has a constant magnitude and is rotating at a constant rate in a plane perpendicular to ...
Coherence (physics)
In physics, two wave sources are coherent if their frequency and waveform are identical. Coherence is an ideal property of waves that enables stationary (i.e., temporally or spatially constant) interference. It contains several distinct concep ...
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Coherence length
In physics, coherence length is the propagation distance over which a coherent wave (e.g. an electromagnetic wave) maintains a specified degree of coherence. Wave interference is strong when the paths taken by all of the interfering waves di ...
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Coherence time
For an electromagnetic wave, the coherence time is the time over which a propagating wave (especially a laser or maser beam) may be considered coherent, meaning that its phase is, on average, predictable.
In long-distance transmission systems ...
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Cold wave
A cold wave (known in some regions as a cold snap, cold spell or Arctic Snap) is a weather phenomenon that is distinguished by a cooling of the air. Specifically, as used by the U.S. National Weather Service, a cold wave is a rapid fall in tem ...
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Collimated light
A collimated beam of light or other electromagnetic radiation has parallel rays, and therefore will spread minimally as it propagates. A perfectly collimated light beam, with no divergence, would not disperse with distance. However, diffraction ...
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Collimator
A collimator is a device which narrows a beam of particles or waves. To narrow can mean either to cause the directions of motion to become more aligned in a specific direction (i.e., make collimated light or parallel rays), or to cause the spati ...
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Compton effect
Compton scattering, discovered by Arthur Holly Compton, is the scattering of a high frequency photon after an interaction with a charged particle, usually an electron. If it results in a decrease in energy (increase in wavelength) of the photon ...
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Comparison of analog and digital recording
Sound can be recorded and stored and played using either digital or analog techniques. Both techniques introduce errors and distortions in the sound, and these methods can be systematically compared. Musicians and listeners have argued over the ...
Continuous phase modulation
Continuous phase modulation (CPM) is a method for modulation of data commonly used in wireless modems. In contrast to other coherent digital phase modulation techniques where the carrier phase
abruptly resets to zero at the start of every symbol (e ...
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Continuous wave
A continuous wave or continuous waveform (CW) is an electromagnetic wave of constant amplitude and frequency, typically a sine wave, that for mathematical analysis is considered to be of infinite duration. It may refer to e.g. a laser or partic ...
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Convective heat transfer
Convection (or convective heat transfer) is the transfer of heat from one place to another due to the movement of fluid. Although often discussed as a distinct method of heat transfer, convective heat transfer involves the combined processes o ...
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Coriolis frequency
The Coriolis frequency ''ƒ'', also called the Coriolis parameter or Coriolis coefficient, is equal to twice the rotation rate ''Ω'' of the Earth multiplied by the sine of the latitude \varphi.
:f = 2 \Omega \sin \varphi.\,
The rotation rate o ...
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Coronal mass ejection
A coronal mass ejection (CME) is a significant release of plasma and accompanying magnetic field from the Sun's corona into the heliosphere. CMEs are often associated with solar flares and other forms of solar activity, but a broadly accept ...
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Cosmic microwave background radiation
In Big Bang cosmology the cosmic microwave background (CMB, CMBR) is electromagnetic radiation that is a remnant from an early stage of the universe, also known as "relic radiation". The CMB is faint cosmic background radiation filling all space ...
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Coulomb wave function
In mathematics, a Coulomb wave function is a solution of the Coulomb wave equation, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. They are used to describe the behavior of charged particles in a Coulomb potential and can be written in terms of conflu ...
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Cutoff frequency
In physics and electrical engineering, a cutoff frequency, corner frequency, or break frequency is a boundary in a system's frequency response at which energy flowing through the system begins to be reduced ( attenuated or reflected) rather tha ...
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Cutoff wavelength
In physics and electrical engineering, a cutoff frequency, corner frequency, or break frequency is a boundary in a system's frequency response at which energy flowing through the system begins to be reduced ( attenuated or reflected) rather than ...
Damped wave
Damping is an influence within or upon an oscillatory system that has the effect of reducing or preventing its oscillation. In physical systems, damping is produced by processes that dissipate the energy stored in the oscillation. Examples i ...
Delta wave
Delta waves are high amplitude neural oscillations with a frequency between 0.5 and 4 hertz. Delta waves, like other brain waves, can be recorded with electroencephalography (EEG) and are usually associated with the deep stage 3 of NREM sleep, ...
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Dielectric waveguide
An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid light ...
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Diffraction
Diffraction is defined as the interference or bending of waves around the corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of the obstacle/aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a s ...
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Direction finding
Direction finding (DF), or radio direction finding (RDF), isin accordance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU)defined as radio location that uses the reception of radio waves to determine the direction in which a radio stati ...
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Dispersion (optics)
In optics, and by analogy other branches of physics dealing with wave propagation, dispersion is the phenomenon in which the phase velocity of a wave depends on its frequency; sometimes the term chromatic dispersion is used for specificity to ...
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Dispersion (water waves)
In fluid dynamics, dispersion of water waves generally refers to frequency dispersion, which means that waves of different wavelengths travel at different phase speeds. Water waves, in this context, are waves propagating on the water surfac ...
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Dispersion relation
In the physical sciences and electrical engineering, dispersion relations describe the effect of dispersion on the properties of waves in a medium. A dispersion relation relates the wavelength or wavenumber of a wave to its frequency. Given t ...
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Dominant wavelength
In color science, the dominant wavelength is a method of characterizing a color's hue. Along with purity, it makes up one half of the Helmholtz coordinates. A color's dominant wavelength is the wavelength of monochromatic spectral light that evo ...
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Doppler effect
The Doppler effect or Doppler shift (or simply Doppler, when in context) is the change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source. It is named after the Austrian physicist Christian Doppler, who ...
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Doppler radar
A Doppler radar is a specialized radar that uses the Doppler effect to produce velocity data about objects at a distance. It does this by bouncing a microwave signal off a desired target and analyzing how the object's motion has altered the fr ...
Draupner wave
Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to lar ...
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Droplet-shaped wave In physics, droplet-shaped waves are casual localized solutions of the wave equation closely related to the X-shaped waves, but, in contrast, possessing a finite support.
A family of the droplet-shaped waves was obtained by extension of the "toy m ...
E-skip
Sporadic E (usually abbreviated E) is an unusual form of radio propagation using a low level of the Earth's ionosphere that normally does not refract radio waves.
Sporadic E propagation reflects signals off relatively small "clouds" in ...
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Earthquake
An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, fr ...
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Echo (phenomenon)
In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the list ...
Eddy (fluid dynamics)
In fluid dynamics, an eddy is the swirling of a fluid and the reverse current created when the fluid is in a turbulent flow regime. The moving fluid creates a space devoid of downstream-flowing fluid on the downstream side of the object. Fluid b ...
Eikonal equation
An eikonal equation (from Greek εἰκών, image) is a non-linear first-order partial differential equation that is encountered in problems of wave propagation.
The classical eikonal equation in geometric optics is a differential equation o ...
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Ekman layer
The Ekman layer is the layer in a fluid where there is a force balance between pressure gradient force, Coriolis force and turbulent drag. It was first described by Vagn Walfrid Ekman. Ekman layers occur both in the atmosphere and in the ocean ...
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Ekman spiral
The oceanic, wind driven Ekman spiral is the result of a force balance created by a shear stress force, Coriolis force and the water drag. This force balance gives a resulting current of the water different from the winds. In the ocean, there are t ...
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Ekman transport
Ekman transport is part of Ekman motion theory, first investigated in 1902 by Vagn Walfrid Ekman. Winds are the main source of energy for ocean circulation, and Ekman Transport is a component of wind-driven ocean current. Ekman transport occurs w ...
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El Niño–Southern Oscillation
El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is an irregular periodic variation in winds and sea surface temperatures over the tropical eastern Pacific Ocean, affecting the climate of much of the tropics and subtropics. The warming phase of the sea te ...
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Electroencephalography
Electroencephalography (EEG) is a method to record an electrogram of the spontaneous electrical activity of the brain. The biosignals detected by EEG have been shown to represent the postsynaptic potentials of pyramidal neurons in the neocorte ...
Electromagnetic radiation
In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visib ...
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Electromagnetic wave
In physics, electromagnetic radiation (EMR) consists of waves of the electromagnetic (EM) field, which propagate through space and carry momentum and electromagnetic radiant energy. It includes radio waves, microwaves, infrared, (visible) ...
Electron
The electron ( or ) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,
and are generally thought to be elementary particles because they have n ...
Elliptical polarization
In electrodynamics, elliptical polarization is the polarization of electromagnetic radiation such that the tip of the electric field vector describes an ellipse in any fixed plane intersecting, and normal to, the direction of propagation. An el ...
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Emission spectrum
The emission spectrum of a chemical element or chemical compound is the spectrum of frequencies of electromagnetic radiation emitted due to an electron making a transition from a high energy state to a lower energy state. The photon energy of ...
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Envelope (waves)
In physics and engineering, the envelope of an oscillating signal is a smooth curve outlining its extremes. The envelope thus generalizes the concept of a constant amplitude into an instantaneous amplitude. The figure illustrates a modulated sin ...
Equatorial waves
Equatorial waves are oceanic and atmospheric waves trapped close to the equator, meaning that they decay rapidly away from the equator, but can propagate in the longitudinal and vertical directions.Holton, James R., 2004: ''An Introduction to Dyna ...
Evanescent wave
In electromagnetics, an evanescent field, or evanescent wave, is an oscillating electric and/or magnetic field that does not propagate as an electromagnetic wave but whose energy is spatially concentrated in the vicinity of the source (oscillat ...
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Extratropical cyclone
Extratropical cyclones, sometimes called mid-latitude cyclones or wave cyclones, are low-pressure areas which, along with the anticyclones of high-pressure areas, drive the weather over much of the Earth. Extratropical cyclones are capable ...
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Extremely low frequency
Extremely low frequency (ELF) is the ITU designation for electromagnetic radiation (radio waves) with frequencies from 3 to 30 Hz, and corresponding wavelengths of 100,000 to 10,000 kilometers, respectively. In atmospheric scien ...
F
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F wave
In neuroscience, an F wave is one of several motor responses which may follow the direct motor response (M) evoked by electrical stimulation of peripheral motor or mixed (sensory and motor) nerves. F-waves are the second of two late voltage change ...
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Fabry–Pérot interferometer
In optics, a Fabry–Pérot interferometer (FPI) or etalon is an optical cavity made from two parallel reflecting surfaces (i.e.: thin mirrors). Optical waves can pass through the optical cavity only when they are in resonance with it. It is n ...
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Faraday wave
Faraday waves, also known as Faraday ripples, named after Michael Faraday (1791–1867), are nonlinear standing waves that appear on liquids enclosed by a vibrating receptacle. When the vibration frequency exceeds a critical value, the flat hydrost ...
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Fetch (geography)
In oceanography wind fetch, also known as fetch length or simply fetch, is the length of water over which a given wind has blown without obstruction. Fetch is used in geography and meteorology and its effects are usually associated with sea state ...
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Fourier series
A Fourier series () is a summation of harmonically related sinusoidal functions, also known as components or harmonics. The result of the summation is a periodic function whose functional form is determined by the choices of cycle length (or '' ...
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Fraunhofer diffraction
In optics, the Fraunhofer diffraction equation is used to model the diffraction of waves when plane waves are incident on a diffracting object, and the diffraction pattern is viewed at a sufficiently long distance (a distance satisfying Fraunhofer ...
Freak wave
Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to l ...
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Frequency
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is eq ...
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Frequency modulation
Frequency modulation (FM) is the encoding of information in a carrier wave by varying the instantaneous frequency of the wave. The technology is used in telecommunications, radio broadcasting, signal processing, and computing.
In analog ...
Fresnel equations
The Fresnel equations (or Fresnel coefficients) describe the reflection and transmission of light (or electromagnetic radiation in general) when incident on an interface between different optical media. They were deduced by Augustin-Jean Fres ...
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Fresnel integral
250px,
Plots of and . The maximum of is about . If the integrands of and were defined using instead of , then the image would be scaled vertically and horizontally (see below).
The Fresnel integrals and are two transcendental functions n ...
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Fresnel lens
A Fresnel lens ( ; ; or ) is a type of composite compact lens developed by the French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel (1788–1827) for use in lighthouses. It has been called "the invention that saved a million ships."
The design allows the c ...
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Fresnel number
The Fresnel number (''F''), named after the physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, is a dimensionless number occurring in optics, in particular in scalar diffraction theory.
Definition
For an electromagnetic wave passing through an aperture and hitti ...
Fresnel zone
A Fresnel zone ( ), named after physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel, is one of a series of confocal prolate ellipsoidal regions of space between and around a transmitter and a receiver. The primary wave will travel in a relative straight line fro ...
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Fresnel–Arago laws The Fresnel–Arago laws are three laws which summarise some of the more important properties of interference between light of different states of polarization. Augustin-Jean Fresnel and François Arago, both discovered the laws, which bear their na ...
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Fundamental frequency
The fundamental frequency, often referred to simply as the ''fundamental'', is defined as the lowest frequency of a periodic waveform. In music, the fundamental is the musical pitch of a note that is perceived as the lowest partial present. I ...
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Gamma ray
A gamma ray, also known as gamma radiation (symbol γ or \gamma), is a penetrating form of electromagnetic radiation arising from the radioactive decay of atomic nuclei. It consists of the shortest wavelength electromagnetic waves, typically ...
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Gamma ray burst
In gamma-ray astronomy, gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are immensely energetic explosions that have been observed in distant galaxies. They are the most energetic and luminous electromagnetic events since the Big Bang. Bursts can last from ten millise ...
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Gamma wave
A gamma wave or gamma Rhythm is a pattern of neural oscillation in humans with a frequency between 25 and 140 Hz, the 40- Hz point being of particular interest. Gamma rhythms are correlated with large scale brain network activity and cognitive ...
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Gaussian beam
In optics, a Gaussian beam is a beam of electromagnetic radiation with high monochromaticity whose amplitude envelope in the transverse plane is given by a Gaussian function; this also implies a Gaussian intensity (irradiance) profile. Thi ...
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Geometric optics
Geometry (; ) is, with arithmetic, one of the oldest branches of mathematics. It is concerned with properties of space such as the distance, shape, size, and relative position of figures. A mathematician who works in the field of geometry is ca ...
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Geometrical optics
Geometrical optics, or ray optics, is a model of optics that describes light propagation in terms of '' rays''. The ray in geometrical optics is an abstraction useful for approximating the paths along which light propagates under certain circumstan ...
Gravitational radiation
Gravitational waves are waves of the intensity of gravity generated by the accelerated masses of an orbital binary system that propagate as waves outward from their source at the speed of light. They were first proposed by Oliver Heaviside in 1 ...
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Gravity wave
In fluid dynamics, gravity waves are waves generated in a fluid medium or at the interface between two media when the force of gravity or buoyancy tries to restore equilibrium. An example of such an interface is that between the atmosphere a ...
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Groundwave
In physics, a surface wave is a mechanical wave that propagates along the interface between differing media. A common example is gravity waves along the surface of liquids, such as ocean waves. Gravity waves can also occur within liquids, at t ...
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Group delay
In signal processing, group delay and phase delay are delay times experienced by a signal's various frequency components when the signal passes through a system that is linear time-invariant (LTI), such as a microphone, coaxial cable, amplifier, ...
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Group velocity
The group velocity of a wave is the velocity with which the overall envelope shape of the wave's amplitudes—known as the ''modulation'' or ''envelope'' of the wave—propagates through space.
For example, if a stone is thrown into the middl ...
H
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Harmonic
A harmonic is a wave with a frequency that is a positive integer multiple of the ''fundamental frequency'', the frequency of the original periodic signal, such as a sinusoidal wave. The original signal is also called the ''1st harmonic'', t ...
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Heat wave
A heat wave, or heatwave, is a period of excessively hot weather, which may be accompanied by high humidity, especially in oceanic climate countries. While definitions vary, a heat wave is usually measured relative to the usual climate in the ...
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Holography
Holography is a technique that enables a wavefront to be recorded and later re-constructed. Holography is best known as a method of generating real three-dimensional images, but it also has a wide range of other applications. In principle, i ...
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Human echolocation
Human echolocation is the ability of humans to detect objects in their environment by sensing echoes from those objects, by actively creating sounds: for example, by tapping their canes, lightly stomping their foot, snapping their fingers, or maki ...
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Hundred-year wave
A hundred-year wave is a statistically projected water wave, the height of which, on average, is met or exceeded once in a hundred years for a given location. The likelihood of this wave height being attained at least once in the hundred-year peri ...
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Hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Dep ...
Hydraulic jump
A hydraulic jump is a phenomenon in the science of hydraulics which is frequently observed in open channel flow such as rivers and spillways. When liquid at high velocity discharges into a zone of lower velocity, a rather abrupt rise occurs in ...
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Hydrography
Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the prima ...
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Hydropower
Hydropower (from el, ὕδωρ, "water"), also known as water power, is the use of falling or fast-running water to produce electricity or to power machines. This is achieved by converting the gravitational potential or kinetic energy of ...
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Hyperbolic partial differential equation
In mathematics, a hyperbolic partial differential equation of order n is a partial differential equation (PDE) that, roughly speaking, has a well-posed initial value problem for the first n-1 derivatives. More precisely, the Cauchy problem can be ...
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In phase
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it ...
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Inertial wave
Inertial waves, also known as inertial oscillations, are a type of mechanical wave possible in rotating fluids. Unlike surface gravity waves commonly seen at the beach or in the bathtub, inertial waves flow through the interior of the fluid, no ...
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Infragravity wave
Infragravity waves are surface gravity waves with frequencies lower than the wind waves – consisting of both wind sea and swell – thus corresponding with the part of the wave spectrum lower than the frequencies directly generated by forci ...
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Infrared gas analyzer
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An infrared gas analyzer measures trace gases by determining the Absorption (electromagnetic radiation), absorption of an emitted infrared light source through a certain air sample. Trace gases found in the Earth's atmosphere become excited un ...
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Inhomogeneous electromagnetic wave equation
In electromagnetism and applications, an inhomogeneous electromagnetic wave equation, or nonhomogeneous electromagnetic wave equation, is one of a set of wave equations describing the propagation of electromagnetic waves generated by nonzero sour ...
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Interference (wave propagation)
In physics, interference is a phenomenon in which two waves combine by adding their displacement together at every single point in space and time, to form a resultant wave of greater, lower, or the same amplitude. Constructive and destructiv ...
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Interferometry
Interferometry is a technique which uses the '' interference'' of superimposed waves to extract information. Interferometry typically uses electromagnetic waves and is an important investigative technique in the fields of astronomy, fiber o ...
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Internal wave
Internal waves are gravity waves that oscillate within a fluid medium, rather than on its surface. To exist, the fluid must be stratified: the density must change (continuously or discontinuously) with depth/height due to changes, for example, in ...
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Inverse scattering transform In mathematics, the inverse scattering transform is a method for solving some non-linear partial differential equations. The method is a non-linear analogue, and in some sense generalization, of the Fourier transform, which itself is applied to so ...
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Ion acoustic wave In plasma physics, an ion acoustic wave is one type of longitudinal oscillation of the ions and electrons in a plasma, much like acoustic waves traveling in neutral gas. However, because the waves propagate through positively charged ions, ion aco ...
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Irradiance In radiometry, irradiance is the radiant flux ''received'' by a ''surface'' per unit area. The SI unit of irradiance is the watt per square metre (W⋅m−2). The CGS unit erg per square centimetre per second (erg⋅cm−2⋅s−1) is often used ...
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Kelvin wave
A Kelvin wave is a wave in the ocean or atmosphere that balances the Earth's Coriolis force against a topographic boundary such as a coastline, or a waveguide such as the equator. A feature of a Kelvin wave is that it is non-dispersive, i.e., the ...
Knife-edge effect
Diffraction is defined as the interference or bending of waves around the corners of an obstacle or through an aperture into the region of geometrical shadow of the obstacle/aperture. The diffracting object or aperture effectively becomes a s ...
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Kondratiev wave
In economics, Kondratiev waves (also called supercycles, great surges, long waves, K-waves or the long economic cycle) are hypothesized cycle-like phenomena in the modern world economy. The phenomenon is closely connected with the technology li ...
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Lamb waves Lamb waves propagate in solid plates or spheres. They are elastic waves whose particle motion lies in the plane that contains the direction of wave propagation and the direction perpendicular to the plate. In 1917, the English mathematician Horace ...
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Landau damping In physics, Landau damping, named after its discoverer,Landau, L. "On the vibration of the electronic plasma". ''JETP'' 16 (1946), 574. English translation in ''J. Phys. (USSR)'' 10 (1946), 25. Reproduced in Collected papers of L.D. Landau, edited a ...
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Lee wave
In meteorology, lee waves are atmospheric stationary waves. The most common form is mountain waves, which are atmospheric internal gravity waves. These were discovered in 1933 by two German glider pilots, Hans Deutschmann and Wolf Hirth, above ...
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Linear elasticity
Linear elasticity is a mathematical model of how solid objects deform and become internally stressed due to prescribed loading conditions. It is a simplification of the more general nonlinear theory of elasticity and a branch of continuum mec ...
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Linear polarization
In electrodynamics, linear polarization or plane polarization of electromagnetic radiation is a confinement of the electric field vector or magnetic field vector to a given plane along the direction of propagation. The term ''linear polarizati ...
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List of waves named after people
This is a list of waves named after people (eponymous waves).
See also
* Eponym
* List of eponymous laws
* Waves
* Scientific phenomena named after people
References
{{Reflist
Waves
Waves most often refers to:
* Waves, oscillations accomp ...
Longitudinal wave
Longitudinal waves are waves in which the vibration of the medium is parallel ("along") to the direction the wave travels and displacement of the medium is in the same (or opposite) direction of the wave propagation. Mechanical longitudinal waves ...
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Longwave
In radio, longwave, long wave or long-wave, and commonly abbreviated LW, refers to parts of the radio spectrum with wavelengths longer than what was originally called the medium-wave broadcasting band. The term is historic, dating from the e ...
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Love wave
In elastodynamics, Love waves, named after Augustus Edward Hough Love, are horizontally polarized surface waves. The Love wave is a result of the interference of many shear waves ( S-waves) guided by an elastic layer, which is ''welded'' to ...
Mach–Zehnder interferometer
The Mach–Zehnder interferometer is a device used to determine the relative phase shift variations between two collimated beams derived by splitting light from a single source. The interferometer has been used, among other things, to measure p ...
Magnetometer
A magnetometer is a device that measures magnetic field or magnetic dipole moment. Different types of magnetometers measure the direction, strength, or relative change of a magnetic field at a particular location. A compass is one such device, ...
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Magnetosonic wave
A magnetosonic wave, also called a magnetoacoustic wave, is a linear magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave that is driven by thermal pressure, magnetic pressure, and magnetic tension. There are two types of magnetosonic waves, the ''fast'' magnetosonic w ...
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Matter wave
Matter waves are a central part of the theory of quantum mechanics, being an example of wave–particle duality. All matter exhibits wave-like behavior. For example, a beam of electrons can be diffracted just like a beam of light or a water wav ...
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Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations, or Maxwell–Heaviside equations, are a set of coupled partial differential equations that, together with the Lorentz force law, form the foundation of classical electromagnetism, classical optics, and electric circuits ...
Mechanical wave
In physics, a mechanical wave is a wave that is an oscillation of matter, and therefore transfers energy through a medium. While waves can move over long distances, the movement of the medium of transmission—the material—is limited. Therefor ...
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Medical ultrasonography
Medical ultrasound includes diagnostic techniques (mainly imaging techniques) using ultrasound, as well as therapeutic applications of ultrasound. In diagnosis, it is used to create an image of internal body structures such as tendons, mus ...
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Mediumwave
Medium wave (MW) is the part of the medium frequency (MF) radio band used mainly for AM radio broadcasting. The spectrum provides about 120 channels with more limited sound quality than FM stations on the FM broadcast band. During the dayt ...
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Megatsunami
A megatsunami is a very large wave created by a large, sudden displacement of material into a body of water.
Megatsunamis have quite different features from ordinary tsunamis. Ordinary tsunamis are caused by underwater tectonic activity (movemen ...
Microwave
Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ra ...
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Microwave auditory effect
The microwave auditory effect, also known as the microwave hearing effect or the Frey effect, consists of the human perception of audible clicks, or even speech, induced by pulsed or modulated radio frequencies. The communications are generated di ...
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Microwave oven
A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...
Microwaving
A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce ...
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Mie scattering
The Mie solution to Maxwell's equations (also known as the Lorenz–Mie solution, the Lorenz–Mie–Debye solution or Mie scattering) describes the scattering of an electromagnetic plane wave by a homogeneous sphere. The solution takes the ...
Modulation
In electronics and telecommunications, modulation is the process of varying one or more properties of a periodic waveform, called the '' carrier signal'', with a separate signal called the ''modulation signal'' that typically contains informat ...
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Monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave In general relativity, the monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave spacetime is the analog of the monochromatic plane waves known from Maxwell's theory. The precise definition of the solution is quite complicated but very instructive.
Any exact ...
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Monochromator
A monochromator is an optical device that transmits a mechanically selectable narrow band of wavelengths of light or other radiation chosen from a wider range of wavelengths available at the input. The name is from the Greek roots ''mono-'', ...
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Moonlight
Moonlight consists of mostly sunlight (with little earthlight) reflected from the parts of the Moon's surface where the Sun's light strikes.
Illumination
The intensity of moonlight varies greatly depending on the lunar phase, but even the ful ...
Multipath propagation
In radio communication, multipath is the propagation phenomenon that results in radio signals reaching the receiving antenna by two or more paths. Causes of multipath include atmospheric ducting, ionospheric reflection and refraction, and refle ...
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Neural oscillation
Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. Neural tissue can generate oscillatory activity in many ways, driven either by mechanisms within individual neurons or by ...
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Neutron
The neutron is a subatomic particle, symbol or , which has a neutral (not positive or negative) charge, and a mass slightly greater than that of a proton. Protons and neutrons constitute the atomic nucleus, nuclei of atoms. Since protons and ...
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Nondispersive infrared sensor
A nondispersive infrared sensor (or NDIR sensor) is a simple spectroscopic sensor often used as a gas detector. It is non-dispersive in the fact that no dispersive element (e.g a prism or diffraction grating as is often present in other spectrome ...
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Nonlinear Schrödinger equation
In theoretical physics, the (one-dimensional) nonlinear Schrödinger equation (NLSE) is a nonlinear variation of the Schrödinger equation. It is a classical field equation whose principal applications are to the propagation of light in non ...
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Nonlinear wave
In mathematics and science, a nonlinear system is a system in which the change of the output is not proportional to the change of the input. Nonlinear problems are of interest to engineers, biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and many other ...
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Nonlinear X-wave
In physics, a nonlinear X-wave (NLX) is a multi-dimensional wave that can travel without distortion.
At variance with X-waves, a nonlinear X-wave does exist in the presence of nonlinearity, and in many cases it self-generates from a Gaussian (in ...
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Normal mode
A normal mode of a dynamical system is a pattern of motion in which all parts of the system move sinusoidally with the same frequency and with a fixed phase relation. The free motion described by the normal modes takes place at fixed frequencies. ...
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Ocean surface wave
In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, water wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result from the wind blowing over the water surface. The contact distance in the direction o ...
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One-Way Wave Equation
A one-way wave equation is a first-order partial differential equation describing one wave traveling in a direction defined by the vector wave velocity. It contrasts with the second-order two-way wave equation describing a standing wavefield resu ...
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Optical fiber
An optical fiber, or optical fibre in Commonwealth English, is a flexible, transparent fiber made by drawing glass ( silica) or plastic to a diameter slightly thicker than that of a human hair
Hair is a protein filament that grows ...
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Optical waveguide
An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid light ...
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Oscillon In physics, an oscillon is a soliton-like phenomenon that occurs in granular and other dissipative media. Oscillons in granular media result from vertically vibrating a plate with a layer of uniform particles placed freely on top. When the sinusoida ...
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Out of phase
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it ...
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Outgoing longwave radiation
Outgoing Long-wave Radiation (OLR) is electromagnetic radiation of wavelengths from 3–100 μm emitted from Earth and its atmosphere out to space in the form of thermal radiation. It is also referred to as up-welling long-wave radiation an ...
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Overtone
An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
P-wave
A P wave (primary wave or pressure wave) is one of the two main types of elastic body waves, called seismic waves in seismology. P waves travel faster than other seismic waves and hence are the first signal from an earthquake to arrive at any ...
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Parabolic reflector
A parabolic (or paraboloid or paraboloidal) reflector (or dish or mirror) is a reflective surface used to collect or project energy such as light, sound, or radio waves. Its shape is part of a circular paraboloid, that is, the surface genera ...
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Periodic function
A periodic function is a function that repeats its values at regular intervals. For example, the trigonometric functions, which repeat at intervals of 2\pi radians, are periodic functions. Periodic functions are used throughout science to des ...
Phase (waves)
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it ...
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Phase difference
In physics and mathematics, the phase of a periodic function F of some real variable t (such as time) is an angle-like quantity representing the fraction of the cycle covered up to t. It is denoted \phi(t) and expressed in such a scale that it v ...
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Phase modulation
Phase modulation (PM) is a modulation pattern for conditioning communication signals for transmission. It encodes a message signal as variations in the instantaneous phase of a carrier wave. Phase modulation is one of the two principal forms of ...
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Phase velocity
The phase velocity of a wave is the rate at which the wave propagates in any medium. This is the velocity at which the phase of any one frequency component of the wave travels. For such a component, any given phase of the wave (for example, ...
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Phonon
In physics, a phonon is a collective excitation in a periodic, elastic arrangement of atoms or molecules in condensed matter, specifically in solids and some liquids. A type of quasiparticle, a phonon is an excited state in the quantum mechani ...
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Photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless, so they alwa ...
Planck constant
The Planck constant, or Planck's constant, is a fundamental physical constant of foundational importance in quantum mechanics. The constant gives the relationship between the energy of a photon and its frequency, and by the mass-energy equivale ...
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Planck's law
In physics, Planck's law describes the spectral density of electromagnetic radiation emitted by a black body in thermal equilibrium at a given temperature , when there is no net flow of matter or energy between the body and its environment.
At ...
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Plane wave
In physics, a plane wave is a special case of wave or field: a physical quantity whose value, at any moment, is constant through any plane that is perpendicular to a fixed direction in space.
For any position \vec x in space and any time t, ...
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Polarization (waves)
Polarization ( also polarisation) is a property applying to transverse waves that specifies the geometrical orientation of the oscillations. In a transverse wave, the direction of the oscillation is perpendicular to the direction of motion of ...
pp-wave spacetime
In general relativity, the pp-wave spacetimes, or pp-waves for short, are an important family of exact solutions of Einstein's field equation. The term ''pp'' stands for ''plane-fronted waves with parallel propagation'', and was introduced in 19 ...
Proton
A proton is a stable subatomic particle, symbol , H+, or 1H+ with a positive electric charge of +1 ''e'' elementary charge. Its mass is slightly less than that of a neutron and 1,836 times the mass of an electron (the proton–electron mass ...
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Pulsar
A pulsar (from ''pulsating radio source'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles. This radiation can be observed only when a beam of emission is pointing toward Ea ...
Pulse wave velocity
Pulse wave velocity (PWV) is the velocity at which the blood pressure pulse propagates through the circulatory system, usually an artery or a combined length of arteries. PWV is used clinically as a measure of arterial stiffness and can be readi ...
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Pulse-density modulation
Pulse-density modulation, or PDM, is a form of modulation used to represent an analog signal with a binary signal. In a PDM signal, specific amplitude values are not encoded into codewords of pulses of different weight as they would be in pulse- ...
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QT interval
The QT interval is a measurement made on an electrocardiogram used to assess some of the electrical properties of the heart. It is calculated as the time from the start of the Q wave to the end of the T wave, and approximates to the time taken ...
Quadrature amplitude modulation
Quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) is the name of a family of digital modulation methods and a related family of analog modulation methods widely used in modern telecommunications to transmit information. It conveys two analog message signa ...
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Quantum optics
Quantum optics is a branch of atomic, molecular, and optical physics dealing with how individual quanta of light, known as photons, interact with atoms and molecules. It includes the study of the particle-like properties of photons. Photons have ...
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Quantum tunneling
In physics, a quantum (plural quanta) is the minimum amount of any physical entity (physical property) involved in an interaction. The fundamental notion that a physical property can be "quantized" is referred to as "the hypothesis of quantizati ...
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Quantum Zeno effect
The quantum Zeno effect (also known as the Turing paradox) is a feature of quantum-mechanical systems allowing a particle's time evolution to be slowed down by measuring it frequently enough with respect to some chosen measurement setting.
Somet ...
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Radar
Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...
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Radar astronomy
Radar astronomy is a technique of observing nearby astronomical objects by reflecting radio waves or microwaves off target objects and analyzing their reflections. Radar astronomy differs from '' radio astronomy'' in that the latter is a passive o ...
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Radar cross section
Radar cross-section (RCS), also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected.
An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. ...
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Radar gun
A radar speed gun (also radar gun and speed trap gun) is a device used to measure the speed of moving objects. It is used in law-enforcement to measure the speed of moving vehicles and is often used in professional spectator sport, for things su ...
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Radio propagation
Radio propagation is the behavior of radio waves as they travel, or are propagated, from one point to another in vacuum, or into various parts of the atmosphere.
As a form of electromagnetic radiation, like light waves, radio waves are affect ...
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Radio waves
Radio waves are a type of electromagnetic radiation with the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum, typically with frequencies of 300 gigahertz ( GHz) and below. At 300 GHz, the corresponding wavelength is 1 mm (s ...
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Radiosity (heat transfer)
In radiometry, radiosity is the radiant flux leaving (emitted, reflected and transmitted by) a surface per unit area, and spectral radiosity is the radiosity of a surface per unit frequency or wavelength, depending on whether the spectrum is take ...
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Rayleigh scattering
Rayleigh scattering ( ), named after the 19th-century British physicist Lord Rayleigh (John William Strutt), is the predominantly elastic scattering of light or other electromagnetic radiation by particles much smaller than the wavelength of th ...
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Rayleigh wave
Rayleigh waves are a type of surface acoustic wave that travel along the surface of solids. They can be produced in materials in many ways, such as by a localized impact or by piezo-electric transduction, and are frequently used in non-destructi ...
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Rayleigh–Jeans law
In physics, the Rayleigh–Jeans law is an approximation to the spectral radiance of electromagnetic radiation as a function of wavelength from a black body at a given temperature through classical arguments. For wavelength λ, it is:
B_ (T) = \ ...
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Redshift
In physics, a redshift is an increase in the wavelength, and corresponding decrease in the frequency and photon energy, of electromagnetic radiation (such as light). The opposite change, a decrease in wavelength and simultaneous increase in fr ...
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Reflection coefficient
In physics and electrical engineering the reflection coefficient is a parameter that describes how much of a wave is reflected by an impedance discontinuity in the transmission medium. It is equal to the ratio of the amplitude of the reflected ...
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Reflection seismology
Reflection seismology (or seismic reflection) is a method of exploration geophysics that uses the principles of seismology to estimate the properties of the Earth's subsurface from reflected seismic waves. The method requires a controlled seism ...
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Refraction
In physics, refraction is the redirection of a wave as it passes from one medium to another. The redirection can be caused by the wave's change in speed or by a change in the medium. Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomen ...
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Relativistic Doppler effect
The relativistic Doppler effect is the change in frequency (and wavelength) of light, caused by the relative motion of the source and the observer (as in the classical Doppler effect), when taking into account effects described by the special the ...
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Resonance
Resonance describes the phenomenon of increased amplitude that occurs when the frequency of an applied periodic force (or a Fourier component of it) is equal or close to a natural frequency of the system on which it acts. When an oscil ...
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Resonator
A resonator is a device or system that exhibits resonance or resonant behavior. That is, it naturally oscillates with greater amplitude at some frequencies, called resonant frequencies, than at other frequencies. The oscillations in a resonator ...
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Ring laser gyroscope
A ring laser gyroscope (RLG) consists of a ring laser having two independent counter-propagating resonant modes over the same path; the difference in phase is used to detect rotation. It operates on the principle of the Sagnac effect which shif ...
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Ring modulation
In electronics, ring modulation is a signal processing function, an implementation of frequency mixing, in which two signals are combined to yield an output signal. One signal, called the carrier, is typically a sine wave or another simple ...
Rip current
A rip current, often simply called a rip (or misleadingly a ''rip tide''), is a specific kind of water current that can occur near beaches with breaking waves. A rip is a strong, localized, and narrow current of water which moves directly away ...
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ripple
Ripple may refer to:
Science and technology
* Capillary wave, commonly known as ripple, a wave traveling along the phase boundary of a fluid
** Ripple, more generally a disturbance, for example of spacetime in gravitational waves
* Ripple (electri ...
Rogue wave (oceanography)
Rogue waves (also known as freak waves, monster waves, episodic waves, killer waves, extreme waves, and abnormal waves) are unusually large, unpredictable, and suddenly appearing surface waves that can be extremely dangerous to ships, even to lar ...
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Rossby wave
Rossby waves, also known as planetary waves, are a type of inertial wave naturally occurring in rotating fluids. They were first identified by Sweden-born American meteorologist Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby. They are observed in the atmospheres an ...
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Rossby-gravity waves
Rossby-gravity waves are equatorially trapped waves (much like Kelvin waves), meaning that they rapidly decay as their distance increases away from the equator (so long as the Brunt–Vaisala frequency does not remain constant). These waves have ...
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Rydberg constant
In spectroscopy, the Rydberg constant, symbol R_\infty for
heavy atoms or R_\text for hydrogen, named after the Swedish physicist Johannes Rydberg, is a physical constant relating to the electromagnetic spectra of an atom. The constant first aro ...
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Rydberg formula
In atomic physics, the Rydberg formula calculates the wavelengths of a spectral line in many chemical elements. The formula was primarily presented as a generalization of the Balmer series for all atomic electron transitions of hydrogen. It wa ...
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S-wave
__NOTOC__
In seismology and other areas involving elastic waves, S waves, secondary waves, or shear waves (sometimes called elastic S waves) are a type of elastic wave and are one of the two main types of elastic body waves, so named because th ...
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Sampling (signal processing)
In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal to a discrete-time signal. A common example is the conversion of a sound wave to a sequence of "samples".
A sample is a value of the signal at a point in time and/or s ...
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Sawtooth wave
The sawtooth wave (or saw wave) is a kind of non-sinusoidal waveform. It is so named based on its resemblance to the teeth of a plain-toothed saw with a zero rake angle. A single sawtooth, or an intermittently triggered sawtooth, is called ...
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Schrödinger equation
The Schrödinger equation is a linear partial differential equation that governs the wave function of a quantum-mechanical system. It is a key result in quantum mechanics, and its discovery was a significant landmark in the development of th ...
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Sea state
In oceanography, sea state is the general condition of the free surface on a large body of water—with respect to wind waves and Swell (ocean), swell—at a certain location and moment. A sea state is characterized by statistics, including the ...
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Seiche
A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of ...
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Seismic wave
A seismic wave is a wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth. It can result from an earthquake, volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide, and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic ener ...
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Seismograph
A seismometer is an instrument that responds to ground noises and shaking such as caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions. They are usually combined with a timing device and a recording device to form a seismograph. The outpu ...
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Seismology
Seismology (; from Ancient Greek σεισμός (''seismós'') meaning "earthquake" and -λογία (''-logía'') meaning "study of") is the scientific study of earthquakes and the propagation of elastic waves through the Earth or through other ...
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Sellmeier equation
The Sellmeier equation is an empirical relationship between refractive index and wavelength for a particular transparent medium. The equation is used to determine the dispersion of light in the medium.
It was first proposed in 1872 by Wolfg ...
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Shallow water equations
The shallow-water equations (SWE) are a set of hyperbolic partial differential equations (or parabolic if viscous shear is considered) that describe the flow below a pressure surface in a fluid (sometimes, but not necessarily, a free surface). ...
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Shive wave machine
John Northrup Shive (February 22, 1913 – June 1, 1984) was an American physicist and inventor. He made notable contributions in electronic engineering and solid-state physics during the early days of transistor development at Bell Labora ...
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Shock wave
In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a me ...
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Shortwave radio
Shortwave radio is radio transmission using shortwave (SW) radio frequencies. There is no official definition of the band, but the range always includes all of the high frequency band (HF), which extends from 3 to 30 MHz (100 to 10 m ...
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Signal velocity
The signal velocity is the speed at which a wave carries information. It describes how quickly a message can be communicated (using any particular method) between two separated parties. No signal velocity can exceed the speed of a light pulse in a ...
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Significant wave height
In physical oceanography, the significant wave height (SWH, HTSGW or ''H''s)
is defined traditionally as the mean ''wave height'' ( trough to crest) of the highest third of the waves (''H''1/3). Nowadays it is usually defined as four times the ...
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Sine wave
A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or just sinusoid is a mathematical curve defined in terms of the '' sine'' trigonometric function, of which it is the graph. It is a type of continuous wave and also a smooth periodic function. It occurs often in ...
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Single-sideband modulation
In radio communications, single-sideband modulation (SSB) or single-sideband suppressed-carrier modulation (SSB-SC) is a type of modulation used to transmit information, such as an audio signal, by radio waves. A refinement of amplitude modul ...
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Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions of the electromagnetic wave equation
Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions are particular solutions to the electromagnetic wave equation.
The general solution of the electromagnetic wave equation in homogeneous, linear, time-independent media can be written as a linear superposition of ...
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Skywave
In radio communication, skywave or skip refers to the propagation of radio waves reflected or refracted back toward Earth from the ionosphere, an electrically charged layer of the upper atmosphere. Since it is not limited by the curvature o ...
Soliton
In mathematics and physics, a soliton or solitary wave is a self-reinforcing wave packet that maintains its shape while it propagates at a constant velocity. Solitons are caused by a cancellation of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the me ...
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Sonar
Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...
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Sonic anemometers
In meteorology, an anemometer () is a device that measures wind speed and direction. It is a common instrument used in weather stations. The earliest known description of an anemometer was by Italian architect and author Leon Battista Alberti ...
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Sound wave
In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid.
In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...
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Spark-gap transmitter
A spark-gap transmitter is an obsolete type of transmitter, radio transmitter which generates radio waves by means of an electric spark."Radio Transmitters, Early" in Spark-gap transmitters were the first type of radio transmitter, and were the m ...
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Spectroscopy
Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter ...
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Speed of gravity
In classical theories of gravitation, the changes in a gravitational field propagate. A change in the distribution of energy and momentum of matter results in subsequent alteration, at a distance, of the gravitational field which it produces. In ...
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Speed of light
The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted , is a universal physical constant that is important in many areas of physics. The speed of light is exactly equal to ). According to the special theory of relativity, is the upper limit fo ...
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Speed of sound
The speed of sound is the distance travelled per unit of time by a sound wave as it propagates through an elastic medium. At , the speed of sound in air is about , or one kilometre in or one mile in . It depends strongly on temperature as we ...
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Spike-and-wave
Spike-and-wave is a pattern of the electroencephalogram (EEG) typically observed during epileptic seizures. A spike-and-wave discharge is a regular, symmetrical, generalized EEG pattern seen particularly during absence epilepsy, also known as ‘ ...
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Spin wave
A spin wave is a propagating disturbance in the ordering of a magnetic material. These low-lying collective excitations occur in magnetic lattices with continuous symmetry. From the equivalent quasiparticle point of view, spin waves are known as ...
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Square wave
A square wave is a non-sinusoidal periodic waveform in which the amplitude alternates at a steady frequency between fixed minimum and maximum values, with the same duration at minimum and maximum. In an ideal square wave, the transitions b ...
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Standing wave
In physics, a standing wave, also known as a stationary wave, is a wave that oscillates in time but whose peak amplitude profile does not move in space. The peak amplitude of the wave oscillations at any point in space is constant with respect ...
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Standing wave ratio
In radio engineering and telecommunications, standing wave ratio (SWR) is a measure of impedance matching of loads to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line or waveguide. Impedance mismatches result in standing waves along the trans ...
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Stefan–Boltzmann law
The Stefan–Boltzmann law describes the power radiated from a black body in terms of its temperature. Specifically, the Stefan–Boltzmann law states that the total energy radiated per unit surface area of a black body across all wavelengths ...
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Stokes drift
For a pure wave motion (physics), motion in fluid dynamics, the Stokes drift velocity is the average velocity when following a specific fluid parcel as it travels with the fluid flow. For instance, a particle floating at the free surface of wat ...
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Stokes wave
In fluid dynamics, a Stokes wave is a nonlinear and periodic surface wave on an inviscid fluid layer of constant mean depth.
This type of modelling has its origins in the mid 19th century when Sir George Stokes – using a perturbation series ...
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Subharmonic
In music, the undertone series or subharmonic series is a sequence of notes that results from inverting the intervals of the overtone series. While overtones naturally occur with the physical production of music on instruments, undertones mus ...
Superharmonic
An overtone is any resonant frequency above the fundamental frequency of a sound. (An overtone may or may not be a harmonic) In other words, overtones are all pitches higher than the lowest pitch within an individual sound; the fundamental i ...
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Superposition principle
The superposition principle, also known as superposition property, states that, for all linear systems, the net response caused by two or more stimuli is the sum of the responses that would have been caused by each stimulus individually. So tha ...
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Supersonic Wave Filter
Supersonic speed is the speed of an object that exceeds the speed of sound (Mach 1). For objects traveling in dry air of a temperature of 20 °C (68 °F) at sea level, this speed is approximately . Speeds greater than five times ...
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Surface acoustic wave
A surface acoustic wave (SAW) is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the material, such that they are confined to a depth of about ...
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Surface wave
In physics, a surface wave is a mechanical wave that propagates along the interface between differing media. A common example is gravity waves along the surface of liquids, such as ocean waves. Gravity waves can also occur within liquids, at ...
Surface-wave magnitude
The surface wave magnitude (M_s) scale is one of the magnitude scales used in seismology to describe the size of an earthquake. It is based on measurements of Rayleigh surface waves that travel along the uppermost layers of the Earth. This ma ...
Surfing
Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable ...
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Sverdrup wave
A Sverdrup wave (also known as Poincaré wave, or rotational gravity wave Kundu, P. K., and L. M. Cohen. "Fluid mechanics, 638 pp." Academic, Calif (1990).) is a wave in the ocean, or large lakes, which is affected by gravity and Earth's rotation ( ...
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Swell (ocean)
A swell, also sometimes referred to as ground swell, in the context of an ocean, sea or lake, is a series of mechanical waves that propagate along the interface between water and air under the predominating influence of gravity, and thus are of ...
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Synthetic-aperture radar
Synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) is a form of radar that is used to create two-dimensional images or three-dimensional reconstructions of objects, such as landscapes. SAR uses the motion of the radar antenna over a target region to provide fin ...
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T wave
In electrocardiography, the T wave represents the repolarization of the ventricles. The interval from the beginning of the QRS complex to the apex of the T wave is referred to as the ''absolute refractory period''. The last half of the T wave ...
Theta wave
Theta waves generate the theta rhythm, a neural oscillation in the brain that underlies various aspects of cognition and behavior, including learning, memory, and spatial navigation in many animals. It can be recorded using various electrophysi ...
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Tidal bore
Tidal is the adjectival form of tide.
Tidal may also refer to:
* ''Tidal'' (album), a 1996 album by Fiona Apple
* Tidal (king), a king involved in the Battle of the Vale of Siddim
* TidalCycles, a live coding environment for music
* Tidal (se ...
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Tidal power
Tidal power or tidal energy is harnessed by converting energy from tides into useful forms of power, mainly electricity using various methods.
Although not yet widely used, tidal energy has the potential for future electricity generation. ...
Tide
Tides are the rise and fall of sea levels caused by the combined effects of the gravitational forces exerted by the Moon (and to a much lesser extent, the Sun) and are also caused by the Earth and Moon orbiting one another.
Tide tables ...
Transverse mode
A transverse mode of electromagnetic radiation is a particular electromagnetic field pattern of the radiation in the plane perpendicular (i.e., transverse) to the radiation's propagation direction. Transverse modes occur in radio waves and microwav ...
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Transverse wave
In physics, a transverse wave is a wave whose oscillations are perpendicular to the direction of the wave's advance. This is in contrast to a longitudinal wave which travels in the direction of its oscillations. Water waves are an example o ...
Traveling wave reactor
A traveling-wave reactor (TWR) is a proposed type of nuclear fission reactor that can convert fertile material into usable fuel through nuclear transmutation, in tandem with the burnup of fissile material. TWRs differ from other kinds of fast-n ...
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Traveling-wave tube
A traveling-wave tube (TWT, pronounced "twit") or traveling-wave tube amplifier (TWTA, pronounced "tweeta") is a specialized vacuum tube that is used in electronics to amplify radio frequency (RF) signals in the microwave range. The TWT belongs t ...
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Triangle wave
A triangular wave or triangle wave is a non-sinusoidal waveform named for its triangular shape. It is a periodic, piecewise linear, continuous real function.
Like a square wave, the triangle wave contains only odd harmonics. However, ...
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Trigonometric function
In mathematics, the trigonometric functions (also called circular functions, angle functions or goniometric functions) are real functions which relate an angle of a right-angled triangle to ratios of two side lengths. They are widely used in a ...
Tropical wave
A tropical wave (also called easterly wave, tropical easterly wave, and African easterly wave), in and around the Atlantic Ocean, is a type of atmospheric trough, an elongated area of relatively low air pressure, oriented north to south, which ...
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Tsunami
A tsunami ( ; from ja, 津波, lit=harbour wave, ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and other underwater exp ...
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Turbidity current
A turbidity current is most typically an underwater current of usually rapidly moving, sediment-laden water moving down a slope; although current research (2018) indicates that water-saturated sediment may be the primary actor in the process. T ...
Ultrasound
Ultrasound is sound waves with frequencies higher than the upper audible limit of human hearing. Ultrasound is not different from "normal" (audible) sound in its physical properties, except that humans cannot hear it. This limit varies ...
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Ultraviolet catastrophe
The ultraviolet catastrophe, also called the Rayleigh–Jeans catastrophe, was the prediction of late 19th century/early 20th century classical physics that an ideal black body at thermal equilibrium would emit an unbounded quantity of energy ...
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Undertow (wave action)
In physical oceanography, undertow is the undercurrent that is moving offshore when waves are approaching the shore. Undertow is a natural and universal feature for almost any large body of water: it is a return flow compensating for the on ...
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Underwater wave
A seiche ( ) is a standing wave in an enclosed or partially enclosed body of water. Seiches and seiche-related phenomena have been observed on lakes, reservoirs, swimming pools, bays, harbors, caves and seas. The key requirement for formation of ...
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Undular bore
In meteorology, an undular bore is a wave disturbance in the Earth's atmosphere and can be seen through unique cloud formations. They normally occur within an area of the atmosphere which is stable in the low levels after an outflow boundary or ...
Vibrating string
A vibration in a string is a wave. Resonance causes a vibrating string to produce a sound with constant frequency, i.e. constant pitch. If the length or tension of the string is correctly adjusted, the sound produced is a musical tone. Vibrating ...
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Voltage standing wave ratio
In radio engineering and telecommunications, standing wave ratio (SWR) is a measure of impedance matching of loads to the characteristic impedance of a transmission line or waveguide. Impedance mismatches result in standing waves along the tran ...
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Vortex
In fluid dynamics, a vortex ( : vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in ...
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Vorticity
In continuum mechanics, vorticity is a pseudovector field that describes the local spinning motion of a continuum near some point (the tendency of something to rotate), as would be seen by an observer located at that point and traveling along wi ...
Wave (audience)
The wave (known as a Mexican wave or stadium wave outside of North America) is an example of metachronal rhythm achieved in a packed stadium when successive groups of spectators briefly stand, yell, and raise their arms. Immediately upon stre ...
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Wave base
The wave base, in physical oceanography, is the maximum depth at which a water wave's passage causes significant water motion. At water depths deeper than the wave base, bottom sediments and the seafloor are no longer stirred by the wave motion ab ...
Wave drag
In physics, mathematics, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Waves can be periodic, in which case those quantities oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (re ...
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Wave equation
The (two-way) wave equation is a second-order linear partial differential equation for the description of waves or standing wave fields — as they occur in classical physics — such as mechanical waves (e.g. water waves, sound waves and ...
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Wave farm
Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC).
Waves are generated by wind ...
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Wave field synthesis
Wave field synthesis (WFS) is a spatial audio rendering technique, characterized by creation of virtual acoustic environments. It produces ''artificial'' wavefronts synthesized by a large number of individually driven loudspeakers. Such wavef ...
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Wave function
A wave function in quantum physics is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The wave function is a complex-valued probability amplitude, and the probabilities for the possible results of measurements ...
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Wave function collapse
In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse occurs when a wave function—initially in a quantum superposition, superposition of several eigenstates—reduces to a single eigenstate due to interaction with the external world. This interaction is ...
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Wave height
In fluid dynamics, the wave height of a surface wave is the difference between the elevations of a crest and a neighboring trough. ''Wave height'' is a term used by mariners, as well as in coastal, ocean and naval engineering.
At sea, the te ...
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Wave impedance The wave impedance of an electromagnetic wave is the ratio of the transverse components of the electric and magnetic fields (the transverse components being those at right angles to the direction of propagation). For a transverse-electric-magnetic ...
Wave packet
In physics, a wave packet (or wave train) is a short "burst" or "envelope" of localized wave action that travels as a unit. A wave packet can be analyzed into, or can be synthesized from, an infinite set of component sinusoidal waves of diff ...
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Wave period
Frequency is the number of occurrences of a repeating event per unit of time. It is also occasionally referred to as ''temporal frequency'' for clarity, and is distinct from ''angular frequency''. Frequency is measured in hertz (Hz) which is e ...
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Wave plate
A waveplate or retarder is an optical device that alters the polarization state of a light wave travelling through it. Two common types of waveplates are the ''half-wave plate'', which shifts the polarization direction of linearly polarized ligh ...
Wave pounding Wave pounding is the 'sledge hammer' effect of tonnes of water crashing against cliffs. It shakes and weakens the rocks leaving them open to attack from hydraulic action and abrasion. Eroded material gets carried away by the wave. Wave pounding is ...
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Wave power
Wave power is the capture of energy of wind waves to do useful work – for example, electricity generation, water desalination, or pumping water. A machine that exploits wave power is a wave energy converter (WEC).
Waves are generated by win ...
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Wave propagation
Wave propagation is any of the ways in which waves travel. Single wave propagation can be calculated by 2nd order wave equation ( standing wavefield) or 1st order one-way wave equation.
With respect to the direction of the oscillation relative ...
Wave surface
In mathematics, Fresnel's wave surface, found by Augustin-Jean Fresnel in 1822, is a quartic surface
In mathematics, especially in algebraic geometry, a quartic surface is a surface defined by an equation of degree 4.
More specifically there ...
Wave vector
In physics, a wave vector (or wavevector) is a vector used in describing a wave, with a typical unit being cycle per metre. It has a magnitude and direction. Its magnitude is the wavenumber of the wave (inversely proportional to the wavelength), ...
Wave–current interaction
In fluid dynamics, wave–current interaction is the interaction between surface gravity waves and a mean flow. The interaction implies an exchange of energy, so after the start of the interaction both the waves and the mean flow are affected.
For ...
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Wave-cut platform
A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most o ...
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Wave-making resistance
Wave-making resistance is a form of drag that affects surface watercraft, such as boats and ships, and reflects the energy required to push the water out of the way of the hull. This energy goes into creating the wave.
Physics
For small displ ...
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Waveform
In electronics, acoustics, and related fields, the waveform of a signal is the shape of its graph as a function of time, independent of its time and magnitude scales and of any displacement in time.David Crecraft, David Gorham, ''Electro ...
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Waveform monitor
A waveform monitor is a special type of oscilloscope used in television production applications. It is typically used to measure and display the level, or voltage, of a video signal with respect to time.
The level of a video signal usually cor ...
Wavefront
In physics, the wavefront of a time-varying '' wave field'' is the set ( locus) of all points having the same '' phase''. The term is generally meaningful only for fields that, at each point, vary sinusoidally in time with a single temporal fr ...
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Wavefunction
A wave function in quantum physics is a mathematical description of the quantum state of an isolated quantum system. The wave function is a complex-valued probability amplitude, and the probabilities for the possible results of measurements ...
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Wavefunction collapse
In quantum mechanics, wave function collapse occurs when a wave function—initially in a superposition of several eigenstates—reduces to a single eigenstate due to interaction with the external world. This interaction is called an ''observa ...
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Waveguide
A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Without the physical constraint of a waveguide, wave intensities de ...
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Waveguide (acoustics)
: ''This page is about waveguides for acoustics and sound, for other types of waveguide, see Waveguide''
An acoustic waveguide is a physical structure for guiding sound waves.
Examples
One example might be a speaking tube used aboard ships f ...
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Waveguide (electromagnetism)
In radio-frequency engineering and communications engineering, waveguide is a hollow metal pipe used to carry radio waves. This type of waveguide is used as a transmission line mostly at microwave frequencies, for such purposes as connecting ...
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Waveguide (optics)
An optical waveguide is a physical structure that guides electromagnetic waves in the optical spectrum. Common types of optical waveguides include optical fiber waveguides, transparent dielectric waveguides made of plastic and glass, liquid lig ...
Wavelength
In physics, the wavelength is the spatial period of a periodic wave—the distance over which the wave's shape repeats.
It is the distance between consecutive corresponding points of the same phase on the wave, such as two adjacent crests, tr ...
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Wavelength selective switching
Wavelength selective switching components are used in WDM optical communications networks to route (switch) signals between optical fibres on a per-wavelength basis.
What is a WSS
A WSS comprises a switching array that operates on light that has ...
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Wavelength-division multiplexing
In fiber-optic communications, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) is a technology which multiplexes a number of optical carrier signals onto a single optical fiber by using different wavelengths (i.e., colors) of laser light. This techniq ...
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Wavelet
A wavelet is a wave-like oscillation with an amplitude that begins at zero, increases or decreases, and then returns to zero one or more times. Wavelets are termed a "brief oscillation". A taxonomy of wavelets has been established, based on the num ...
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Wavelet transform
In mathematics, a wavelet series is a representation of a square-integrable ( real- or complex-valued) function by a certain orthonormal series generated by a wavelet. This article provides a formal, mathematical definition of an orthonormal ...
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Wavenumber
In the physical sciences, the wavenumber (also wave number or repetency) is the '' spatial frequency'' of a wave, measured in cycles per unit distance (ordinary wavenumber) or radians per unit distance (angular wavenumber). It is analogous to te ...
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Zonal wavenumber
In meteorological applications, a zonal wavenumber or hemispheric wavenumber is the dimensionless number of wavelengths fitting within a full circle around the globe at a given latitude.
:k = \frac \lambda
where ''λ'' is the wavelength, ''r'' ...
Wave–particle duality
Wave–particle duality is the concept in quantum mechanics that every particle or quantum entity may be described as either a particle or a wave. It expresses the inability of the classical physics, classical concepts "particle" or "wave" to fu ...
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Waverider
A waverider is a hypersonic aircraft design that improves its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves being generated by its own flight as a lifting surface, a phenomenon known as compression lift.
The waverider remains a we ...
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Waves and shallow water
When waves travel into areas of shallow water, they begin to be affected by the ocean bottom. The free orbital motion of the water is disrupted, and water particles in orbital motion no longer return to their original position. As the water be ...
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Waves in plasmas In plasma physics, waves in plasmas are an interconnected set of particles and fields which propagate in a periodically repeating fashion. A plasma is a quasineutral, electrically conductive fluid. In the simplest case, it is composed of electron ...
Wien's displacement law
Wien's displacement law states that the black-body radiation curve for different temperatures will peak at different wavelengths that are inversely proportional to the temperature. The shift of that peak is a direct consequence of the Planck r ...
Wind wave
In fluid dynamics, a wind wave, water wave, or wind-generated water wave, is a surface wave that occurs on the free surface of bodies of water as a result from the wind blowing over the water surface. The contact distance in the direction of ...
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Windsurfing
Windsurfing is a wind propelled water sport that is a combination of sailing and surfing. It is also referred to as "sailboarding" and "boardsailing", and emerged in the late 1960s from the aerospace and surf culture of California. Windsurfing ga ...
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X-band radar
The X band is the designation for a band of frequencies in the microwave radio region of the electromagnetic spectrum. In some cases, such as in communication engineering, the frequency range of the X band is rather indefinitely set at approxim ...
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X-ray
An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...
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X-wave
In physics, X-waves are localized solutions of the wave equation that travel at a constant velocity in a given direction. X-waves can be sound, electromagnetic, or gravitational waves. They are built as a non-monochromatic superposition of Besse ...
Zero-dispersion wavelength
In a single-mode optical fiber, the zero-dispersion wavelength is the wavelength or wavelengths at which material dispersion and waveguide dispersion cancel one another. In all silica-based optical fibers, minimum material dispersion occurs natural ...
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Zigzag
A zigzag is a pattern made up of small corners at variable angles, though constant within the zigzag, tracing a path between two parallel lines; it can be described as both jagged and fairly regular.
In geometry, this pattern is described as ...
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Zodiacal light
The zodiacal light (also called false dawn when seen before sunrise) is a faint glow of diffuse sunlight scattered by interplanetary dust. Brighter around the Sun, it appears in a particularly dark night sky to extend from the Sun's direction ...
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Zone plate
A zone plate is a device used to Focus (optics), focus light or other things exhibiting wave character.G. W. Webb, I. V. Minin and O. V. Minin, “Variable Reference Phase in Diffractive Antennas”, ''IEEE Antennas and Propagation Magazine'', ...