Wave vs Waves: Understanding the Difference in Continuous Disturbances

[spaghetti3451]

Does a disturbance (that is continuous) propagating away from a point constitute just one single wave? Or does it constitute more than one wave?

 

[yungman]

I don't have an answer. But if a rock drop in a still pond, it generate a ring of disturbance and propagate out like a ring. Behind the ring, it is all still again. I would not consider it is continuous and is one single wave propagating outwards.

But if you have a continuous disturbance at the origin like you described, even the wave propagate out, it is ONE continuous wave.

That's how I see it.

 

[Philip Wood]

Funnily enough, exactly this question came up in discussion with colleagues the other day. Generally, we favoured 'wave', even for a continuous sinusoidal disturbance, but we didn't think there was much wrong with 'waves', either!

What I don't think is good is to divide a sinusoidal wave profile into portions each a wavelength long, and reserve the term 'wave' for each portion. But then nobody was suggesting doing so!

 

[gsal]

what if you take a long rope and give a good whip as you finish your motion right on the ground? Guess what...you are going to see a single wave...this is called a "traveling wave" and it happens in the real world in many places...I, for one, found them during college studies in power transmission lines.

On the other hand, I am not about the semantics...it seems as if a wave is wave whether it is a single distortion or multiples one in sequence...the word 'waves' seems to be applicable when you actually have waves of different source or frequency, etc, you know what I mean.

 

[Naty1]

Usually it is both...Generally, waves can be decomposed into constitutent components...sums, products,etc...

An easy way to think about it is any trigonometric identity function:

for example:

Sin (x +y) = Sin(x)Cos(y) + Cos(x)Sin(y)

or

Sin2x = 2SinxCosx

 

[olivermsun]

I don't have an answer. But if a rock drop in a still pond, it generate a ring of disturbance and propagate out like a ring. Behind the ring, it is all still again. I would not consider it is continuous and is one single wave propagating outwards.

But if you have a continuous disturbance at the origin like you described, even the wave propagate out, it is ONE continuous wave.

I don't think the question is easily answered. Would one characterize an ideal solitary wave as a "wave" or "waves"?

 

[yungman]

I don't think the question is easily answered. Would one characterize an ideal solitary wave as a "wave" or "waves"?

That's why I said I don't have an answer, just my opinion.

 

[Delta Kilo]

Well, amplitude, phase, frequency, wavelength, all these typical wave-ish terms are applicable to a "wave" (singular), which is a continuous sinewave. Or at least that's what comes to mind when you think about it in electronics domain.