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The weakness of the wave theory was that light waves, like sound waves, would need a medium for transmission. The existence of the hypothetical substance luminiferous aether proposed by Huygens in 1678 was cast into strong doubt in the late nineteenth century by the Michelson–Morley experiment .
Refraction of light is the most commonly observed phenomenon, but other waves such as sound waves and water waves also experience refraction. How much a wave is refracted is determined by the change in wave speed and the initial direction of wave propagation relative to the direction of change in speed.
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 guides, and liquid waveguides.
In seismology, shear waves are also called secondary waves or S-waves. Transverse waves are contrasted with longitudinal waves , where the oscillations occur in the direction of the wave. The standard example of a longitudinal wave is a sound wave or "pressure wave" in gases, liquids, or solids, whose oscillations cause compression and ...
From a book published in 1807 relating lectures given by Young in 1802 to London's Royal Institution. While studying medicine at Göttingen in the 1790s, Young wrote a thesis on the physical and mathematical properties of sound [4] and in 1800, he presented a paper to the Royal Society (written in 1799) where he argued that light was also a wave motion.
A standing wave, also known as a stationary wave, is a wave whose envelope remains in a constant position. This phenomenon arises as a result of interference between two waves traveling in opposite directions. The sum of two counter-propagating waves (of equal amplitude and frequency) creates a standing wave. Standing waves commonly arise when ...
The rays or waves may be diffracted, refracted, reflected, or absorbed by the atmosphere and obstructions with material and generally cannot travel over the horizon or behind obstacles. In contrast to line-of-sight propagation, at low frequency (below approximately 3 MHz ) due to diffraction , radio waves can travel as ground waves , which ...
From the basic one-dimensional plane-wave solutions, a general form of a wave packet can be expressed as (,) = (()). where the amplitude A(k), containing the coefficients of the wave superposition, follows from taking the inverse Fourier transform of a "sufficiently nice" initial wave u(x, t) evaluated at t = 0: = (,) . and / comes from Fourier ...