Search

Skip to main content Accessibility help

Home
Search

Only show content I have access to (0)

Chapters (1)

Over 3 years (1)

From year:

To year:

Apply

Physics and Astronomy (1)

inextensible string

Cambridge University Press (1)

View selected items
Save to my bookmarks
Export citations
Download PDF (zip)
Save to Kindle
Save to Dropbox
Save to Google Drive
Save content to
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to .

To save content items to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Please be advised that item(s) you selected are not available.
You are about to save
Your Kindle email address

Please provide your Kindle email.

@free.kindle.com @kindle.com (service fees apply)

By using this service, you agree that you will only keep content for personal use, and will not openly distribute them via Dropbox, Google Drive or other file sharing services

1 results

4 - The Wave Equation
Joel Franklin, Reed College, Oregon
Book:

Mathematical Methods for Oscillations and Waves

Published online:

02 April 2020

Print publication:

05 March 2020, pp 90-119
- Chapter
- - Get access
    
    Check if you have access via personal or institutional login
    
    Log in Register
- Export citation
Summary

Taking the continuum limit of the chains of masses from the previous chapter, we arrive at the wave equation, the physical subject of this chapter.The connection to approximate string motion is an additional motivation.Viewed as a manifestation of a conservation law, the wave equation can be extended to other conservative, but nonlinear cases, like traffic flow.Mathematically, we are interested in turning partial differential equations (PDEs) into ODEs, making contact with some familiar examples.Making PDEs into ODEs occurs in a couple of ways --- the method of characteristics, and additive/multiplicative separation of variables are the primary tools.