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Electromagnetic wave equation. The electromagnetic wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation that describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium or in a vacuum. It is a three-dimensional form of the wave equation. The homogeneous form of the equation, written in terms of either the electric field E or ...
The de Broglie wavelength is the wavelength, λ, associated with a particle with momentum p through the Planck constant, h: =. Wave-like behavior of matter has been experimentally demonstrated, first for electrons in 1927 and for other elementary particles, neutral atoms and molecules in the years since.
Both differential equations have the form of the general wave equation for waves propagating with speed , where is a function of time and location, which gives the amplitude of the wave at some time at a certain location: = This is also written as: = where denotes the so-called d'Alembert operator, which in Cartesian coordinates is given as
A wave packet has an envelope that describes the overall amplitude of the wave; within the envelope, the distance between adjacent peaks or troughs is sometimes called a local wavelength. [21] [22] An example is shown in the figure. In general, the envelope of the wave packet moves at a speed different from the constituent waves. [23]
The wave equation is a hyperbolic partial differential equation describing waves, including traveling and standing waves; the latter can be considered as linear superpositions of waves traveling in opposite directions. This article mostly focuses on the scalar wave equation describing waves in scalars by scalar functions u = u (x, y, z, t) of a ...
Standing wave. Animation of a standing wave (red) created by the superposition of a left traveling (blue) and right traveling (green) 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 ...
Propagation constant. The propagation constant of a sinusoidal electromagnetic wave is a measure of the change undergone by the amplitude and phase of the wave as it propagates in a given direction. The quantity being measured can be the voltage, the current in a circuit, or a field vector such as electric field strength or flux density.
The units of the amplitude depend on the type of wave, but are always in the same units as the oscillating variable. A more general representation of the wave equation is more complex, but the role of amplitude remains analogous to this simple case. For waves on a string, or in a medium such as water, the amplitude is a displacement.