Waves and vibrations

Abstract

Our daily experience deals with sound waves, electromagnetic waves (as radio or light waves), deep or surface water waves, elastic waves in solid materials. Oscillatory phenomena manifest themselves also in less macroscopic and known contexts and ways. This is the case, for instance, of rarefaction and shock waves in traffic dynamics or of electrochemical waves in human nervous system and in the regulation of the heart beat. In quantum physics, everything can be described in terms of wave functions, at a sufficiently small scale.