Wave

Article

A wave is a disturbance or variation that transfers energy and information through space or through a medium. The material carrying a mechanical wave may oscillate locally without travelling with the wave over long distances.

Waves can be transverse, longitudinal, surface, standing, travelling, linear, or nonlinear. Electromagnetic and gravitational waves can propagate through vacuum, while sound and water waves require a material medium.

Important properties include amplitude, frequency, period, wavelength, phase, speed, and polarisation. Waves can reflect, refract, diffract, interfere, disperse, and form resonances.

Wave behaviour is central to acoustics, optics, communications, oceanography, seismology, quantum mechanics, astronomy, and many other areas of science and engineering.

Source details and credits

• Source / publisher: Wikipedia
• URL type: WWW
• Credits: Wikipedia
• URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wave