Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A wave-cut platform, shore platform, coastal bench, or wave-cut cliff is the narrow flat area often found at the base of a sea cliff or along the shoreline of a lake, bay, or sea that was created by erosion. Wave-cut platforms are often most obvious at low tide when they become visible as huge areas of flat rock.
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.
A marine terrace represents the former shoreline of a sea or ocean. It can be formed by marine abrasion or erosion of materials comprising the shoreline (marine-cut terraces or wave-cut platforms); the accumulations of sediments in the shallow-water to slightly emerged coastal environments (marine-built terraces or raised beach); or the bioconstruction by coral reefs and accumulation of reef ...
The light wave polarization specifies the form and location of the electric field vector's direction at a particular point in space as a function of time (in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction). There are three possible polarization states for light, depending on where the vector's direction is located.
On a cliffed coast made up of material which is only fairly or even hardly resistant to erosion no wave-cut platform but a beach is formed in front of the sea cliff. If waves carve notches at a narrow point on both sides of a promontory on the rocky cliffed coast, a natural arch may be formed. [ 4 ]
The most common of these, geometric optics, treats light as a collection of rays that travel in straight lines and bend when they pass through or reflect from surfaces. Physical optics is a more comprehensive model of light, which includes wave effects such as diffraction and interference that cannot be accounted for in geometric optics ...
Furthermore, shore platforms are formed by denudation and marine-built terraces arise from accumulations of materials removed by shore erosion. [2] Thus, a marine terrace can be formed by both erosion and accumulation. However, there is an ongoing debate about the roles of wave erosion and weathering in the formation of shore platforms. [10]
A light ray is a line or curve that is perpendicular to the light's wavefronts (and is therefore collinear with the wave vector). A slightly more rigorous definition of a light ray follows from Fermat's principle , which states that the path taken between two points by a ray of light is the path that can be traversed in the least time.