Wave equation

In the case of a stress pulse propagating longitudinally through a bar, the bar acts much like an infinite number of springs in series and can be taken as an extension of the equation derived for Hooke's law. A uniform bar, i.e. of constant cross-section, made from a linear elastic material has a stiffness K given by
Another way to arrive at this result is to factor the wave equation into two one-way wave equations:
The total wave function for this eigenmode is then the linear combination
A solution of the initial-value problem for the wave equation in three space dimensions can be obtained from the corresponding solution for a spherical wave. The result can then be also used to obtain the same solution in two space dimensions.
The wave equation can be solved using the technique of separation of variables. To obtain a solution with constant frequencies, let us first Fourier-transform the wave equation in time as
For physical examples of non-spherical wave solutions to the 3D wave equation that do possess angular dependence, see dipole radiation.
From this we can observe that the peak intensity of the spherical wave oscillation, characterized as the squared wave amplitude
We can use the three-dimensional theory to solve this problem if we regard u as a function in three dimensions that is independent of the third dimension. If
Approximating the continuous string with a finite number of equidistant mass points one gets the following physical model:
Taking the sum of these two forces and dividing with the mass m one gets for the vertical motion:
using an 8th order multistep method the 6 states displayed in figure 2 are found:
To simplify this greatly, we can use Green's theorem to simplify the left side to get the following:
The left side is now the sum of three line integrals along the bounds of the causality region. These turn out to be fairly easy to compute
Adding the three results together and putting them back in the original integral: