Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

05 The Continuum Limit And The Wave Equation, Charles G. Torre

Foundations of Wave Phenomena

Our example of a chain of oscillators is nice because it is easy to visualize such a system, namely, a chain of masses connected by springs. But the ideas of our example are far more useful than might appear from this one simple mechanical model. Indeed, many materials (including solids, liquids and gases) have some aspects of their physical response to (usually small) perturbations behaving just as if they were a bunch of coupled oscillators — at least to a first approximation. In a sense we will explore later, even the electromagnetic field behaves this way! This “harmonic oscillator” response …