Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The plane wavefront is a good model for a surface-section of a very large spherical wavefront; for instance, sunlight strikes the earth with a spherical wavefront that has a radius of about 150 million kilometers (1 AU). For many purposes, such a wavefront can be considered planar over distances of the diameter of Earth.
The term is also used, even more specifically, to mean a "monochromatic" or sinusoidal plane wave: a travelling plane wave whose profile () is a sinusoidal function. That is, (,) = (() +) The parameter , which may be a scalar or a vector, is called the amplitude of the wave; the scalar coefficient is its "spatial frequency"; and the scalar is its "phase shift".
The wavefronts of a traveling plane wave in three-dimensional space. In mathematics and physics , a traveling plane wave [ 1 ] is a special case of plane wave , namely a field whose evolution in time can be described as simple translation of its values at a constant wave speed c {\displaystyle c} , along a fixed direction of propagation n → ...
Also amphidrome and tidal node. A geographical location where there is little or no tide, i.e. where the tidal amplitude is zero or nearly zero because the height of sea level does not change appreciably over time (meaning there is no high tide or low tide), and around which a tidal crest circulates once per tidal period (approximately every 12 hours). Tidal amplitude increases, though not ...
Comparing our exact solution with the usual monochromatic electromagnetic plane wave as treated in special relativity (i.e., as a wave in flat spacetime, neglecting the gravitational effects of the energy of the electromagnetic field), one sees that the striking new feature in general relativity is the expansion and collapse cycles experienced ...
These choices determine a reference plane that is typically defined as containing the point of origin and the x– and y–axes, either of which may be designated as the azimuth reference direction. The reference plane is perpendicular (orthogonal) to the zenith direction, and typically is designated "horizontal" to the zenith direction's ...
The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christiaan Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) states that every point on a wavefront is itself the source of spherical wavelets, and the secondary wavelets emanating from different points mutually interfere. [1] The sum of these spherical wavelets forms a new wavefront.
Then he considers a plane wavefront propagating in a medium with non-spherical secondary wavefronts, oriented so that the ray path given by Huygens' construction – from the source of the secondary wavefront to its point of tangency with the subsequent primary wavefront – is not normal to the primary wavefronts (p. 296). He shows that this ...