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Particle velocity (denoted v or SVL) is the velocity of a particle (real or imagined) in a medium as it transmits a wave. The SI unit of particle velocity is the metre per second (m/s). In many cases this is a longitudinal wave of pressure as with sound , but it can also be a transverse wave as with the vibration of a taut string.
In a sound wave, the complementary variable to sound pressure is the particle velocity. Together, they determine the sound intensity of the wave. Sound intensity, denoted I and measured in W·m −2 in SI units, is defined by =, where p is the sound pressure, v is the particle velocity.
Phase velocity is the rate at which the phase of the wave propagates in space: any given phase of the wave (for example, the crest) will appear to travel at the phase velocity. The phase velocity is given in terms of the wavelength λ (lambda) and period T as v p = λ T . {\displaystyle v_{\mathrm {p} }={\frac {\lambda }{T}}.}
At first, Schrödinger and others thought that wave functions represent particles that are spread out with most of the particle being where the wave function is large. [18] This was shown to be incompatible with the elastic scattering of a wave packet (representing a particle) off a target; it spreads out in all directions. [1]
An acoustic wave is a mechanical wave that transmits energy through the movements of atoms and molecules. Acoustic waves transmit through fluids in a longitudinal manner (movement of particles are parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave); in contrast to electromagnetic waves that transmit in transverse manner (movement of particles at a right angle to the direction of propagation ...
The phase velocity is the rate at which the phase of the wave propagates in space. The group velocity is the rate at which the wave envelope, i.e. the changes in amplitude, propagates. The wave envelope is the profile of the wave amplitudes; all transverse displacements are bound by the envelope profile.
By comparison with vector wave equations, the scalar wave equation can be seen as a special case of the vector wave equations; in the Cartesian coordinate system, the scalar wave equation is the equation to be satisfied by each component (for each coordinate axis, such as the x component for the x axis) of a vector wave without sources of waves ...
Before matrix mechanics, the old quantum theory described the motion of a particle by a classical orbit, with well defined position and momentum X(t), P(t), with the restriction that the time integral over one period T of the momentum times the velocity must be a positive integer multiple of the Planck constant = =.