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In the late 17th century, Sir Isaac Newton had advocated that light was corpuscular (particulate), but Christiaan Huygens took an opposing wave description. While Newton had favored a particle approach, he was the first to attempt to reconcile both wave and particle theories of light, and the only one in his time to consider both, thereby anticipating modern wave-particle duality.
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.
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.
The wave equation is a second-order linear partial differential equation for the description of waves or standing wave fields such as mechanical waves (e.g. water waves, sound waves and seismic waves) or electromagnetic waves (including light waves). It arises in fields like acoustics, electromagnetism, and fluid dynamics.
"Longitudinal waves" and "transverse waves" have been abbreviated by some authors as "L-waves" and "T-waves", respectively, for their own convenience. [1] While these two abbreviations have specific meanings in seismology (L-wave for Love wave [2] or long wave [3]) and electrocardiography (see T wave), some authors chose to use "ℓ-waves" (lowercase 'L') and "t-waves" instead, although they ...
In part correct, [2] being able to successfully explain refraction, reflection, rectilinear propagation and to a lesser extent diffraction, the theory would fall out of favor in the early nineteenth century, as the wave theory of light amassed new experimental evidence. [3] The modern understanding of light is the concept of wave-particle duality.
Ray tracing of a beam of light passing through a medium with changing refractive index.The ray is advanced by a small amount, and then the direction is re-calculated. Ray tracing works by assuming that the particle or wave can be modeled as a large number of very narrow beams (), and that there exists some distance, possibly very small, over which such a ray is locally straight.
The first six longitudinal modes of a plane-parallel cavity. A longitudinal mode of a resonant cavity is a particular standing wave pattern formed by waves confined in the cavity. The longitudinal modes correspond to the wavelengths of the wave which are reinforced by constructive interference after many reflections from the cavity's reflecting ...