/sci/ - Science & Math

>The absolute state of this thread
>The absolute state of this board
Fuck me are there any real scientists left on /sci/? OP you're fine it's good to want to learn so thank you for asking. The rest of you

Let's start with fields:
A field models some physical quantity that has a particular value at each point in space. For example in a swimming pool the height of the water above the bottom of the pool is a 2D field. At every point in the continuous space within the boundary of the pool, you can assign a number that corresponds to the distance between the bottom of the pool and the surface of the water. You can also have vector fields where each point in space can be assigned a vector quantity, for example on a weather map the wind direction is a vector field.

Waves are configurations of the field that are oscillatory in nature. For example the field might be the displacement of a string. Along the length of the string we can assign a value to each point that is the distance between that part of the string and some reference line (usually the rest position of the string as in pic). The string can be deformed and pulled into all kinds of configurations but the oscillatory ones obey nice equations and can be used to express all other possible configurations via a Fourier transform. The electric field exists because at all points in space we assign a value that can be used to work out how much energy an electron gets when travelling from one point in space to another. It's more complicated than that really but that is why it is a field.

Fuck all of you dumb cunts who could've said any of this basic shit and spared me having to use MS Paint