wave number

The number of waves per unit distance in a series of waves of a given wavelength; the reciprocal of the wavelength.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

wave number

(General Physics) physics the reciprocal of the wavelength of a wave. Symbol: ν or σ

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

wave′ num`ber

the number of waves in one centimeter of light in a given wavelength; the reciprocal of the wavelength.

[1900–05]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

wave number - the reciprocal of the wavelength of a wave

rydberg, rydberg constant, rydberg unit - a wave number characteristic of the wave spectrum of each element

frequence, frequency, oftenness - the number of occurrences within a given time period; "the frequency of modulation was 40 cycles per second"; "the frequency of his seizures increased as he grew older"

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References in periodicals archive

Sulfone group (S=O, symmetric in PSU) wave number (1150.00cm-1) shifted its peaks to 1128.05cm-1, 1121.41cm-1, and 1124.57cm-1, respectively, due to vibrational stretching.

Properties and Characteristic of Amine-Polymer Blend Membrane

In the 2D study in [37], different shape food samples could be classified as thin ([N.sub.w] [less than or equal to] 0.1), intermediate ([N.sub.w] > 0.1, [N.sub.p] < 3), and thick ([N.sub.p] [greater than or equal to] 3) size according to samples' wave number and penetration number on the cross-section plane.

Shape Effect on the Temperature Field during Microwave Heating Process

From [25-28] and the references it can be found that, due to the so-called pollution effect [29], to compute approximate solutions of the Helmholtz equation for high wave numbers by the standard finite element method (FEM) is unreliable, so, in (9), the wave number should be not high.

Numerical Method for Solving Nonhomogeneous Backward Heat Conduction Problem

i.e., the probability to find a wave number k in the asymptotic transmitted wave packet is the same as in the initial state, which is as expected, since after a long enough time the initial wave packet will be transmitted with probability unit, as mentioned earlier.

A Probability Distribution for Quantum Tunneling Times

In two-layer fluid system, the time-harmonic waves of a particular mode can propagate with two-different wave numbers: waves with lower wave number propagate in the upper layer and the waves with higher wave number propagate in the lower layer.

Water-waves Scattering by Permeable Bottom in Two-layer Fluid in the Presence of Surface Tension

The wave number [k.sub.i] of the ith wave and the relevant [[omega].sub.i] are as follows:

Estimation of Fluctuation Characterizations by USV-Operation Simulations in Sea State 3

Two dispersion relations (9) and (25) are transcendent equations in which the wave frequency, [omega], is a complex quantity: Re([omega]) + Im([omega]), while the axial wave number, [k.sub.z], is a real variable.

Modeling Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability in Soft X-Ray Solar Jets

Normally, [k*.sub.0] is referred to as the absolute wave number and [[omega]*.sub.0i] the absolute growth rate.

Spatial-Temporal Instability of an Inviscid Shear Layer

Where [[??].sub.i] abd [[??].sub.s] represent the combined vectors of incident and scattered wave number, respectively; R is the distance from the observation to the facet centers; k is the electromagnetic wave number; p and q are the polarization of the incident and scattered wave; [S.sub.pq] denotes the scattering amplitude that can be expressed as

Electromagnetic Scattering of Electrically Large Ship above Sea Surface with SBR-SDFM Method