Timeline for What characteristics define a wave for a physicist?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
16 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 13, 2016 at 19:46 | vote | accept | SRS | ||
| Oct 13, 2016 at 19:09 | answer | added | Skawang | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 17:14 | answer | added | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 15:13 | comment | added | Lewis Miller | There is a class of nonlinear equations that have soliton (also called solitary wave) solutions. These are sometimes nonperiodic. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 9:36 | comment | added | Ruslan | No, not necessarily Schrödinger's equation. Solutions of Maxwell's equations, for example, also would be hard to understand if they were unbounded at infinity. Same for elastic waves, sound waves, water sufrace waves, most of other types of waves. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 9:08 | comment | added | SRS | Are you talking about quantum mechanical wavefunctions? My question was about waves in a material medium (not the solution of time-dependent Schrodinger's equation). I didn't understand the phrase "for infinite interval the wave functions are expected to be bounded". | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 9:02 | comment | added | Ruslan | In physics usually waves obey some boundary conditions. Namely, for infinite interval the wave functions are expected to be bounded. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 9:01 | comment | added | SRS | @Shing- Are you referring to Fourier integral? Note that, the examples I've cited, satisfy wave equation. However, they are not periodic by any means. My concern is whether the examples I've given can be called waves. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:53 | history | edited | SRS | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:43 | comment | added | SRS | I've made an edit. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:42 | history | edited | SRS | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:40 | comment | added | Mockingbird | @SRS"Any superposition , of two arbitrary function and of satisfies the wave equation in one-dimension." I don't understand this part. | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:36 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 13, 2016 at 8:15 | comment | added | Shing | You can get $y(x,t)$ by the superposition of sine and cosine functions; which is periodic functions. Is this where you are confused? | |
| Oct 13, 2016 at 7:15 | history | edited | user36790 | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Oct 13, 2016 at 6:46 | history | asked | SRS | CC BY-SA 3.0 |