Wave Speed

Wave speed is a wave property, which may refer to absolute value of:

  • phase velocity, the velocity at which a wave phase propagates at a certain frequency
  • group velocity, the propagation velocity for the envelope of wave groups and often of wave energy, different from the phase velocity for dispersive waves
  • signal velocity, or information velocity, which is the velocity at which a wave carries information
  • front velocity, the velocity at which the first rise of a pulse above zero moves forward

Famous quotes containing the words wave and/or speed:

    “Well, from what you tell me I should say that it was not only a landslide but a tidal wave and holocaust all rolled into one general cataclysm.”
    —William Howard Taft (1857–1930)

    “There exist certain individuals who are, by nature, given purely to contemplation and are utterly unsuited to action, and who, nevertheless, under a mysterious and unknown impulse, sometimes act with a speed which they themselves would have thought beyond them.”
    —Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)