Utah State University

Title

10 Why "Plane" Waves?

Authors

Charles G. Torre, Department of Physics, Utah State UniversityFollow

Files

Description

Let us now pause to explain in more detail why we called the elementary solutions (9.9) and (9.26) plane waves. The reason is that the displacement q(r, t) has the symmetry of a plane. To see this, fix a time t (take a “snapshot” of the wave) and pick a location r. Examine the wave displacement q (at the fixed time) at all points in a plane that is (i) perpendicular to k, and (2) passes through r. The wave displacement will be the same at each point of this plane.

Publication Date

2012

Keywords

Plane waves, displacement, chapter ten

Disciplines

Physics

Comments

Chapter 10

Recommended Citation

Torre, Charles G., "10 Why "Plane" Waves?" (2012). Foundations of Wave Phenomena. Book 13.
http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/foundation_wave/13