Re: Waves

[Bob Sciamanda <trebor@VELOCITY.NET>]

Our simplistic model (redundancy?) ascribing purely vertical motion to a
string supporting a wave has inherent contradictions.  If you haven't
thought carefully about it, see the eye-opener:

Reuben Benumof, "Simple harmonic motion in harmonic waves", AJP 48, No 5,
387-392, may 1980.

-Bob

Bob Sciamanda
Physics, Edinboro Univ of PA (ret)
trebor@velocity.net
http://www.velocity.net/~trebor

-----Original Message-----
From: Barlow Newbolt <NewboltW@MADISON.ACAD.WLU.EDU>
To: PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU <PHYS-L@LISTS.NAU.EDU>
Date: Thursday, March 11, 1999 4:42 PM
Subject: Re: Waves


> You are confusing me mightily about these waves and their
> momentum.  I will stipulate that phonons in solids and
> photons in the electromagnetic field are concentrations of
> energy, and that when a concentration of energy moves there
> is a momentum associated with that motion.
>
> That said, I must admit that the only way I see a momentum
> flux to be associated with the traveling waves that may be
> moving down a stretched string is relativistic and is again
> associated with the motion of a bundle of energy down the
> string.  So far as I can see no rest mass is transported
> and no momentum moves down the string.
>                               WBN
> Barlow Newbolt
> Department of Physics and Engineering
> Washington and Lee University
> Lexington, VA 24450
>
> Young man if I could remember the names of all of
> these particles I would have become a botanist
>                        Enrico Fermi
> Telephone and Phone Mail:  540-463-8881
> Fax: 540-463-8884
> e-mail: NewboltW@madison.acad.wlu.edu