Re: terminology: period vs. wavelength

[brian whatcott <inet@INTELLISYS.NET>]

At 19:54 6/29/01 -0400, John Denker responded to
 Michael Edmiston's note in this way:
//
> Before there was Latin _periodus_ there was Greek
>         _periodos_    "circuit"
> from
>         _peri_   "around"
>         _odos_   "way"     (same root as "odometer")
> giving no reason to restrict the concept to temporal periods.


[For mavens of the written word, what is in discussion here
is etymology. There is a good etymological dictionary of
English English, that is the OED and its siblings and
offspring, COD etcetera. There is a good etymological
dictionary of American English too, where the taste for
etymology is not so cultivated, and that is the Century.

I expect there are others too, but I don't know them,
other than Lexicon's "New Webster's" and Britannica's
"Webster's International" which handle this word well]

> > If I ask students for the wavelength of a sound wave
> > I expect them to report a length,
>
> OK.
>
> > and if I ask for the period of a sound wave I expect
> > them to report a time.
>
> Not so clear.

> To my ears, in this context wavelength is a
> _more specific_ term than
> period, equivalent to "spatial period". ///

I find myself in agreement with John Denker. Moreover, the
respectable phrase "periodic time" lifts the term in question
to the same level of explication as "wavelength": an easy out.




brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>  Altus OK
                Eureka!