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The Potential of a Field’s Elasticity

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Particles, Fields and Forces

Part of the book series: The Frontiers Collection ((FRONTCOLL))

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Abstract

What is the origin of a wave? Why is something waving in the first place? To understand that we need to look at the concept of potential energy and how that gets exchanged with kinetic energy . Just like the pendulum of a classic clock. The pendulum determines the pace of the clock. It does so by swinging from left to right at a fixed frequency. The swinging motion is characterized by a continuous exchange of potential energy and kinetic energy. It has maximum potential energy when it is at its top and has a maximal kinetic energy when it is at the bottom (see Fig. 5.1).

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Schmitz, W. (2019). The Potential of a Field’s Elasticity. In: Particles, Fields and Forces. The Frontiers Collection. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12878-4_5

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