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In chemistry, a chemical oscillator is a complex mixture of reacting chemical compounds in which the concentration of one or more components exhibits periodic changes. They are a class of reactions that serve as an example of non-equilibrium thermodynamics with far-from-equilibrium behavior.
Oscillation is the repetitive or periodic variation, typically in time, of some measure about a central value (often a point of equilibrium) or between two or more different states. Familiar examples of oscillation include a swinging pendulum and alternating current. Oscillations can be used in physics to approximate complex interactions, such ...
The subject of Fourier series investigates the idea that an 'arbitrary' periodic function is a sum of trigonometric functions with matching periods. According to the definition above, some exotic functions, for example the Dirichlet function, are also periodic; in the case of Dirichlet function, any nonzero rational number is a period.
A molecular vibration is a periodic motion of the atoms of a molecule relative to each other, such that the center of mass of the molecule remains unchanged. The typical vibrational frequencies range from less than 10 13 Hz to approximately 10 14 Hz, corresponding to wavenumbers of approximately 300 to 3000 cm −1 and wavelengths of approximately 30 to 3 μm.
Climate oscillations that appear to follow a regular pattern but which do not have a fixed period are called quasiperiodic. [3] [4]Within a dynamical system such as the ocean-atmosphere system, oscillations may occur regularly when they are forced by a regular external forcing: for example, the familiar winter-summer cycle is forced by variations in sunlight from the (very close to perfectly ...
An oscillator is a physical system characterized by periodic motion, such as a pendulum, tuning fork, or vibrating diatomic molecule.Mathematically speaking, the essential feature of an oscillator is that for some coordinate x of the system, a force whose magnitude depends on x will push x away from extreme values and back toward some central value x 0, causing x to oscillate between extremes.
Natural frequency, measured in terms of eigenfrequency, is the rate at which an oscillatory system tends to oscillate in the absence of disturbance. A foundational example pertains to simple harmonic oscillators, such as an idealized spring with no energy loss wherein the system exhibits constant-amplitude oscillations with a constant frequency.
Consequently, it is a special type of spatiotemporal oscillation that is a periodic function of both space and time. Periodic travelling waves play a fundamental role in many mathematical equations, including self-oscillatory systems, [1] [2] excitable systems [3] and reaction–diffusion–advection systems. [4]