List of waves named after people - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

This is a list of waves named after people (eponymous waves).

Wave	Field	Person(s) Named After
Alfvén wave Alfvén wave An Alfvén wave, named after Hannes Alfvén, is a type of magnetohydrodynamic wave.-Definition:An Alfvén wave in a plasma is a low-frequency travelling oscillation of the ions and the magnetic field...	Magnetohydrodynamics	Hannes Alfvén Hannes Alfvén Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén was a Swedish electrical engineer, plasma physicist and winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on magnetohydrodynamics . He described the class of MHD waves now known as Alfvén waves...
Bloch wave Bloch wave A Bloch wave or Bloch state, named after Felix Bloch, is the wavefunction of a particle placed in a periodic potential...	Solid state physics, condensed matter physics	Felix Bloch Felix Bloch Felix Bloch was a Swiss physicist, working mainly in the U.S.-Life and work:Bloch was born in Zürich, Switzerland to Jewish parents Gustav and Agnes Bloch. He was educated there and at the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, also in Zürich. Initially studying engineering he soon changed to physics...
de Broglie wave	Quantum physics	Louis de Broglie
Elliott wave	Finance	Ralph Nelson Elliott Ralph Nelson Elliott Ralph Nelson Elliott was an American accountant and author, whose study of stock market data led him to develop the Wave Principle, a form of technical analysis that identifies trends in the financial markets...
Faraday wave Faraday wave Faraday waves, also known as Faraday ripples, named after Michael Faraday, are nonlinear standing waves that appear on liquids enclosed by a vibrating receptacle. When the vibration frequency exceeds a critical value, the flat hydrostatic surface becomes unstable. This is known as the Faraday...	Water waves	Michael Faraday Michael Faraday Michael Faraday, FRS was an English chemist and physicist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism and electrochemistry....
Gerstner wave	Water waves, oceanography	František Josef Gerstner František Josef Gerstner František Josef Gerstner was a Bohemian physicist and engineer.Gerstner studied at the Jesuits gymnasium in Chomutov, after which he studied mathematics and astronomy at the Faculty of Philosophy in Prague between 1772 and 1777. In 1781, he started to study medicine in Vienna, but quickly decided...
Kelvin wave Kelvin wave A Kelvin wave is a wave in the ocean or atmosphere that balances the Earth's Coriolis force against a topographic boundary such as a coastline, or a waveguide such as the equator. A feature of a Kelvin wave is that it is non-dispersive, i.e., the phase speed of the wave crests is equal to the...	Oceanography, atmospheric dynamics	Lord Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin OM, GCVO, PC, PRS, PRSE, was a mathematical physicist and engineer. At the University of Glasgow he did important work in the mathematical analysis of electricity and formulation of the first and second laws of thermodynamics, and did much to unify the emerging...
Lamb wave Lamb waves Lamb waves propagate in solid plates. They are elastic waves whose particle motion lies in the plane that contains the direction of wave propagation and the plate normal . In 1917, the English mathematician Horace Lamb published his classic analysis and description of acoustic waves of this type....	Acoustics, elastic waves	Horace Lamb Horace Lamb Sir Horace Lamb FRS was a British applied mathematician and author of several influential texts on classical physics, among them Hydrodynamics and Dynamical Theory of Sound...
Langmuir wave Plasma oscillation Plasma oscillations, also known as "Langmuir waves" , are rapid oscillations of the electron density in conducting media such as plasmas or metals. The oscillations can be described as an instability in the dielectric function of a free electron gas. The frequency only depends weakly on the...	Plasma physics	Irving Langmuir Irving Langmuir Irving Langmuir was an American chemist and physicist. His most noted publication was the famous 1919 article "The Arrangement of Electrons in Atoms and Molecules" in which, building on Gilbert N. Lewis's cubical atom theory and Walther Kossel's chemical bonding theory, he outlined his...
Love wave Love wave In elastodynamics, Love waves are horizontally polarized shear waves guided by an elastic layer, which is "welded" to an elastic half space on one side while bordering a vacuum on the other side...	Elastodynamics, surface waves	Augustus Edward Hough Love Augustus Edward Hough Love Augustus Edward Hough Love FRS , often known as A. E. H. Love, was a mathematician famous for his work on the mathematical theory of elasticity...
Mach wave Mach wave In fluid dynamics, a Mach wave is a pressure wave traveling with the speed of sound caused by a slight change of pressure added to a compressible flow. These weak waves can combine in supersonic flow to become a shock wave if sufficient Mach waves are present at any location. Such a shock wave is...	Fluid dynamics	Ernst Mach Ernst Mach Ernst Mach was an Austrian physicist and philosopher, noted for his contributions to physics such as the Mach number and the study of shock waves...
Rayleigh wave Rayleigh wave Rayleigh waves are a type of surface acoustic wave that travels on solids. They are produced on the Earth by earthquakes, in which case they are also known as "ground roll", or by other sources of seismic energy such as ocean waves an explosion or even a sledgehammer impact... or Rayleigh–Lamb wave	Surface acoustic waves, seismology	Lord Rayleigh John Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, OM was an English physicist who, with William Ramsay, discovered the element argon, an achievement for which he earned the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1904... and Horace Lamb Horace Lamb Sir Horace Lamb FRS was a British applied mathematician and author of several influential texts on classical physics, among them Hydrodynamics and Dynamical Theory of Sound...
Rossby wave Rossby wave Atmospheric Rossby waves are giant meanders in high-altitude winds that are a major influence on weather.They are not to be confused with oceanic Rossby waves, which move along the thermocline: that is, the boundary between the warm upper layer of the ocean and the cold deeper part of the...	Meteorology, oceanography	Carl-Gustaf Rossby Carl-Gustaf Rossby Carl-Gustaf Arvid Rossby was a Swedish-U.S. meteorologist who first explained the large-scale motions of the atmosphere in terms of fluid mechanics....
Stokes wave Gravity wave In fluid dynamics, gravity waves are waves generated in a fluid medium or at the interface between two media which has the restoring force of gravity or buoyancy....	Surface gravity waves, water waves	George Gabriel Stokes George Gabriel Stokes Sir George Gabriel Stokes, 1st Baronet FRS , was an Irish mathematician and physicist, who at Cambridge made important contributions to fluid dynamics , optics, and mathematical physics...
Tollmien–Schlichting wave	Stability of laminar flows	Walter Tollmien Walter Tollmien Walter Tollmien was a German fluid dynamics engineer.-Life:Walter Tollmien studied from the winter semester 1920–1921 mathematics and physics with Ludwig Prandtl in Göttingen and then from 1924 onwards worked under Prandtl at Kaiser Wilhelm Institute... and Hermann Schlichting Hermann Schlichting Hermann Schlichting was a German fluid dynamics engineer.-Life and work:Hermann Schlichting studied from 1926 till 1930 mathematics, physics and applied mechanics at the University of Jena, Vienne and Göttingen...

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