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I actually divided the velocity of a particle in a progressive wave $\dfrac{\partial y}{\partial t}$ to $\dfrac{\partial y}{\partial x}$ and got $\dfrac{\partial x}{\partial t}$. Which is equal to $\dfrac{-\omega}{k}$ . Mathematically it is equal to $-V$. But I am not getting its qualitative meaning. enter image description here

I divided the two highlighted equations Also, can I even divide two derivatives which have different constants$?$

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    $\begingroup$ Your question is unclear. Could you write out some more of the math? What is a progressive wave? What are you dividing, and in what context? If you add more details and use more accurate language it will be much easier to answer. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 27, 2020 at 15:37
  • $\begingroup$ I hope the edit makes it clearer $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 27, 2020 at 16:41

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In the general sense, it is wrong to think about the derivative (partial or total) $\frac{\partial f(x)}{\partial x}$ as a fraction. For a finite difference, it is fine, but since the derivative is the infinitesimal limit of a fraction, it is not necessarily well-defined how to treat numerator and denominator separately.

Rather, for full derivatives you might use the chain rule $\frac{d f}{d x} = \frac{d f}{d t} \frac{dt}{dx} $, which, however, is more complicated in the case of partial derivatives. The most straightforward way of finding $\frac{\partial x}{\partial t}$ might be to invert $y(x)$ to find $x(y)$ and then taking the time derivative directly.

Note that in physics we often perform substitution of variables in integrals by pretending the fraction is well-defined. One must be very careful, since this only works under certain circumstances.

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