Progressive waves
Effect of disturbance, either a lone wave crest, a lone wave trough or a sequence of several crests & troughs, travels through water (think of effect of a pebble tossed in a pond)
- We call these water waves progressive waves
In some cases that we will examine, a wave’s inflection point may appear to be stationary while the wave crests become troughs & the wave troughs become crests
- We call these water waves standing waves
Standing waves are really the sum of two or more progressive waves (more about this later)