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- DictionaryWave/wāv/
verb
- 1. move one's hand to and fro in greeting or as a signal: "he waved to me from the train"
- 2. move to and fro with a swaying or undulating motion while remaining fixed to one point: "the flag waved in the wind"
noun
- 1. a long body of water curling into an arched form and breaking on the shore: "he was swept out to sea by a freak wave"
- 2. a sudden occurrence of or increase in a specified phenomenon, feeling, or emotion: "its remarkable how one small gesture can create a wave of kindness"
People also ask
What are the different types of waves?
What are the properties of waves?
What is the difference between a transverse wave and a longitudinal wave?
How does the propagation of a wave through a medium depend on the medium’s properties?
May 10, 2015 · Learn the various meanings and uses of the word wave as a verb, noun, and noun (2). Find synonyms, examples, etymology, and related phrases of wave.
Wave definition: a disturbance on the surface of a liquid body, as the sea or a lake, in the form of a moving ridge or swell.. See examples of WAVE used in a sentence.
Learn the meaning of wave as a verb, noun, and idiom in English. Find out how to use wave in different contexts, such as greeting, moving, curling, or describing energy patterns.
- Overview
- Types and features of waves
- Wave behaviour
- Reflection
- Refraction
- Diffraction
- Interference
- Doppler effect
- Standing waves
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
wave, propagation of disturbances from place to place in a regular and organized way. Most familiar are surface waves that travel on water, but sound, light, and the motion of subatomic particles all exhibit wavelike properties. In the simplest waves, the disturbance oscillates periodically (see periodic motion) with a fixed frequency and wavelengt...
Waves come in two kinds, longitudinal and transverse. Transverse waves are like those on water, with the surface going up and down, and longitudinal waves are like of those of sound, consisting of alternating compressions and rarefactions in a medium. The high point of a transverse wave is a called the crest, and the low point is called the trough. For longitudinal waves, the compressions and rarefactions are analogous to the crests and troughs of transverse waves. The distance between successive crests or troughs is called the wavelength. The height of a wave is the amplitude. How many crests or troughs pass a specific point during a unit of time is called the frequency. The velocity of a wave can be expressed as the wavelength multiplied by the frequency.
Britannica Quiz
Physics and Natural Law
Waves can travel immense distances even though the oscillation at one point is very small. For example, a thunderclap can be heard kilometres away, yet the sound carried manifests itself at any point only as minute compressions and rarefactions of the air.
Waves display several basic phenomena. In reflection, a wave encounters an obstacle and is reflected back. In refraction, a wave bends when it enters a medium through which it has a different speed. In diffraction, waves bend when they pass around small obstacles and spread out when they pass through small openings. In interference, when two waves ...
When waves hit a boundary and are reflected, the angle of incidence equals the angle of reflection. The angle of incidence is the angle between the direction of motion of the wave and a line drawn perpendicular to the reflecting boundary.
The speed of a wave depends on the properties of the medium through which it travels. For example, sound travels much faster through water than through air. When a wave enters at an angle a medium through which its speed would be slower, the wave is bent toward the perpendicular. When a wave enters at an angle a medium in which its speed would be increased, the opposite effect happens. With light, this change can be expressed by using Snell’s law of refraction.
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When a wave encounters a small obstacle or a small opening (that is, small compared with the wavelength of the wave), the wave can bend around the obstacle or pass through the opening and then spread out. This bending or spreading out is called diffraction.
The waves from two or more centres of disturbance may reinforce each other in some directions and cancel in others. This phenomenon is called the interference of waves. It is easy to see how this may happen. Consider two sources producing waves of the same wavelength and in phase; that is, at their origin the crests of the waves occur at the same t...
When the source of a wave moves relative to an observer, the observer notices a change in the frequency of the wave. This change is called the Doppler effect, after its discoverer, Austrian physicist Christian Doppler.
Consider a source emitting a wave such as light or sound of frequency ν moving away from an observer at velocity v. The successive crests of the light waves will reach the observer at longer intervals than if the observer were at rest, and calculation shows that the observer will receive them with a frequency ν(1−v/c), where c is the velocity of the wave. The frequency of the wave will appear to the observer slightly lower than it would if the source were at rest. If the source is approaching, the frequency will be higher.
If a wave is confined to a closed space, it undergoes both reflection and interference. For example, consider a tube of length l. A disturbance anywhere in the air in the tube will be reflected from both ends and produce in general a series of waves traveling in both directions along the tube. From the geometry of the situation and the finite constant value of acoustic velocity, these must be periodic waves with frequencies fixed by the boundary conditions at the end of the tube. The allowed frequencies of the waves in the tube satisfy sin kl = 0; i.e., the allowed frequencies are ν = nv/2l, where n is any integer and v is the acoustic velocity in the tube. These are the frequencies of harmonic waves that can exist in the tube and still satisfy the boundary conditions at the ends. They are called the characteristic frequencies or normal modes of vibration of the air column. The fundamental frequency (n = 1) is ν = v/2l.
The higher frequencies, called harmonics or overtones, are multiples of the fundamental. It is customary to refer to the fundamental as the first harmonic; n = 2 gives the second harmonic or first overtone, and so on. Approximately the same set of characteristic frequencies hold for a cylindrical tube open at both ends, though the boundary conditions are different.
A wave is a disturbance that travels through a medium or space with a fixed frequency and wavelength. Learn about the different kinds of waves, how they behave, and how they interact with each other and with matter.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
In physics, mathematics, engineering, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Periodic waves oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (resting) value at some frequency.
Learn the meaning, pronunciation and usage of the word wave in different contexts, such as water, sound, light, movement, activity, feeling and hair. Find synonyms, idioms and related topics for wave.
Definitions of wave. noun. (physics) a movement up and down or back and forth. synonyms: undulation. see more. noun. an undulating curve. synonyms: undulation. see more. noun. one of a series of ridges that moves across the surface of a liquid (especially across a large body of water) synonyms: moving ridge. see more. noun.
