Wave speed
Encyclopedia
Wave speed is a wave
property, which may refer to absolute value
of:
Wave
In physics, a wave is a disturbance that travels through space and time, accompanied by the transfer of energy.Waves travel and the wave motion transfers energy from one point to another, often with no permanent displacement of the particles of the medium—that is, with little or no associated mass...
property, which may refer to absolute value
Absolute value
In mathematics, the absolute value |a| of a real number a is the numerical value of a without regard to its sign. So, for example, the absolute value of 3 is 3, and the absolute value of -3 is also 3...
of:
- phase velocityPhase velocityThe phase velocity of a wave is the rate at which the phase of the wave propagates in space. This is the speed at which the phase of any one frequency component of the wave travels. For such a component, any given phase of the wave will appear to travel at the phase velocity...
, the velocity at which a wave phase propagates at a certain frequency - group velocityGroup velocityThe group velocity of a wave is the velocity with which the overall shape of the wave's amplitudes — known as the modulation or envelope of the wave — propagates through space....
, the propagation velocity for the envelope of wave groups and often of wave energy, different from the phase velocity for dispersive waves - signal velocitySignal velocityThe signal velocity is the speed at which a wave carries information. It describes how quickly a message can be communicated between two separated parties...
or information velocity, which is the velocity at which a wave carries information - front velocityFront velocityIn physics, front velocity is the speed at which the first rise of a pulse above zero moves forward.In mathematics, it is also used to describe the velocity of a possibly propagating front in the solution of hyperbolic partial differential equation....
, the velocity at which the first rise of a pulse above zero moves forward