Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The continuous line or surface including all the points in space reached by a wave or vibration at the same instant as it travels through a medium.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun physics An imaginary
surface passing through points of a mediumoscillating inphase .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun (physics) an imaginary surface joining all points in space that are reached at the same instant by a wave propagating through a medium
Etymologies
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Examples
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The bottom image illustrates aperture diffraction in Huygens construction; because the wavefront is ‘clipped’ at the edges of the aperture, the wavelets on the edges spread out into the ’shadow’ region of the aperture:
Optics basics: What is a wave? Part III: Diffraction « Skulls in the Stars 2007
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The position of the new wavefront is constructed by tracing the boundary of all these ’secondary’ wavelets.
Optics basics: What is a wave? Part III: Diffraction « Skulls in the Stars 2007
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By customizing it to their particular eyes, either by means of what's called a wavefront map, or by means of a map of the shape of their eye, you put additional information into the laser, better data, better results, better night vision, and better safety.
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Earth's geological history is recorded permanently in the rock strata, and it's like that for the whole universe, but its record is embedded in spacetime, left behind by the wavefront which is 'now'.
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“All right, so this trans-slipstream wavefront hit Intrepid at G-231, and knocked her all the way over to the Agni Cluster?”
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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“What would happen if this magnitude of a wavefront hit a mine?” prompted Scotty.
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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“What would happen if this magnitude of a wavefront hit a mine?” prompted Scotty.
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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If the wavefront could carry Intrepid, it would have carried the mines as well, farther and more easily.
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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If the wavefront could carry Intrepid, it would have carried the mines as well, farther and more easily.
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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He brought up the first wavefront analysis on the padd.
Star Trek The Next Generation® David A. McIntee 2011
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