Abstract
I QUITE agree with the physical principles in Lord Rayleigh's article on “Röntgen Rays and Ordinary Light” in NATURE of April 28, and think that the difference between us is one of terminology. I am accustomed to restrict the word wave to disturbances in which the harmonic character is well developed, and not to use it in physics in the sense in which it is used in the phrase “a wave of enthusiasm.” It would never have occurred to me to speak of a disturbance localised in a thin shell as a wave of short wave-length. I should speak of it as a pulse, and though such pulses can of course be resolved by Fourier's theorem into trains of waves, yet it seems to me that when a simple pulse is so resolved (except for some special purpose), there is a loss of clearness both in expression and conception analogous to that which would occur if we regarded a straight line as an aggregate of harmonic curves.
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THOMSON, J. Röntgen Rays and Ordinary Light. Nature 58, 8 (1898). https://doi.org/10.1038/058008e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/058008e0
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