Construct · 3 fields · 4 citations
One name. Different field. Different construct. One map.
● jingle · one word, three constructs Nearest construct by meaningoscillationcompare the meaningsEvery construct on the map is compared with every other by the meaning of its definitions, and the closest one is surfaced here. The nearest construct to wave is oscillation.
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A disturbance that travels through space or a medium, carrying energy without carrying matter along with it. In classical physics a wave is any solution to the wave equation, from a mechanical wave that needs a medium, such as sound in air or a ripple on water, to an electromagnetic wave that needs none, such as light in vacuum. French's Vibrations and Waves gives the standard account, in which the referent is a physical field, the unit is a measurable quantity like amplitude, wavelength, or frequency, and the motion is periodic and governed by an equation. Here the word names a propagating physical process, not a metaphor and not a stretch of time.[1]
Rhythmic oscillations of electrical activity produced by populations of neurons, grouped into frequency bands such as delta, theta, alpha, and beta. Berger recorded the human electroencephalogram in Über das Elektrenkephalogramm des Menschen in 1929 and named the alpha rhythm; Buzsáki and Draguhn later described how such oscillations coordinate activity across cortical networks. The referent is a voltage measured at the scalp or in tissue, the unit is a frequency in hertz together with an amplitude, and the wave is a real periodic signal. It shares the word and the periodicity with a physical wave, but it is generated by living neural circuits rather than propagating through a medium.[2][3]
A cluster of similar events that arrive together in time, such as a wave of democratization, migration, protest, or adoption. Huntington's The Third Wave describes democratization as coming in three historical waves, each a group of countries moving from authoritarian to democratic rule within a bounded period, followed by a partial reverse wave. The referent is a set of societies or actors changing in the same direction at once, and the unit is a count of transitions within a window, not a periodic signal. The word borrows the shape of a rising and falling curve, but nothing oscillates and nothing propagates through a medium; it names a surge, not a physical wave.[4]
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