Abstract
The world is continually criss-crossed by waves of all sorts. Water waves, whether giant rollers in the middle of the ocean or gently formed rain ripples on a still pond, are sources of wonder or pleasure. If the Earth’s crust shifts, violent waves in the solid Earth cause tremors thousands of kilometers away. A musician plucks a guitar string, and sound waves pulse against the ears. Wave disturbances may come in a concentrated bundle, like the shock front from an airplane flying at supersonic speeds. Or the disturbances may come in succession like the train of waves sent out from a steadily vibrating source, such as a bell or a string.
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Further Reading
G. Holton and S.G. Brush, Physics, The Human Adventure (Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2001), Chapter 23.
D. Park, The Fire within the Eye: A Historical Essay on the Nature and Meaning of Light (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997).
J. Hecht, City of Light: The Story of Fiber Optics. Sloan Technology Series (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999).
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© 2002 Springer Science+Business Media New York
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Cassidy, D., Holton, G., Rutherford, J. (2002). Wave Motion. In: Understanding Physics. Undergraduate Texts in Contemporary Physics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-7698-0_8
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