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Wave vs Particle - What's the difference?

wave | particle |

In physics terms the difference between wave and particle

is that wave is a moving disturbance in the energy level of a field while particle is any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.

As nouns the difference between wave and particle

is that wave is a moving disturbance in the level of a body of water; an undulation while particle is a very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.

As a verb wave

is to move back and forth repeatedly.

wave

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) waven, from (etyl) .

Verb

(wav)
  • (lb) To move back and forth repeatedly.
  • :
  • *{{quote-news, year=2011, date=October 1, author=Tom Fordyce, work=BBC Sport
  • , title= Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland , passage=But the World Cup winning veteran's left boot was awry again, the attempt sliced horribly wide of the left upright, and the saltires were waving aloft again a moment later when a long pass in the England midfield was picked off to almost offer up a breakaway try.}}
  • (lb) To wave one’s hand in greeting or departure.
  • :
  • (lb) To have an undulating or wavy form.
  • (lb) To raise into inequalities of surface; to give an undulating form or surface to.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:horns whelked and waved like the enridged sea
  • (lb) To produce waves to the hair.
  • *
  • *:There was also hairdressing: hairdressing, too, really was hairdressing in those times — no running a comb through it and that was that. It was curled, frizzed, waved', put in curlers overnight, ' waved with hot tongs;.
  • To swing and miss at a pitch.
  • :
  • (lb) To cause to move back and forth repeatedly.
  • :
  • (lb) To signal (someone or something) with a waving movement.
  • To fluctuate; to waver; to be in an unsettled state.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:He waved indifferently 'twixt doing them neither good nor harm.
  • To move like a wave, or by floating; to waft.
  • :(Sir Thomas Browne)
  • To call attention to, or give a direction or command to, by a waving motion, as of the hand; to signify by waving; to beckon; to signal; to indicate.
  • *(William Shakespeare) (c.1564–1616)
  • *:Look, with what courteous action / It waves you to a more removed ground.
  • * (1809-1892)
  • *:She spoke, and bowing waved / Dismissal.
  • Derived terms
    * wave off * waver * wave the white flag

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) *.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A moving disturbance in the level of a body of water; an undulation.
  • The wave traveled from the center of the lake before breaking on the shore.
  • (physics) A moving disturbance in the energy level of a field.
  • Gravity waves , while predicted by theory for decades, have been notoriously difficult to detect.
  • A shape that alternatingly curves in opposite directions.
  • Her hair had a nice wave to it.
    sine wave
  • (figuratively) A sudden unusually large amount of something that is temporarily experienced.
  • A wave of shoppers stampeded through the door when the store opened for its Christmas discount special.
    A wave of retirees began moving to the coastal area.
    A wave of emotion overcame her when she thought about her son who was killed in battle.
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2011 , date=January 11 , author=Jonathan Stevenson , title=West Ham 2 - 1 Birmingham , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Foster had been left unsighted by Scott Dann's positioning at his post, but the goalkeeper was about to prove his worth to Birmingham by keeping them in the game with a series of stunning saves as West Ham produced waves' after ' wave of attack in their bid to find a crucial second goal.}}
  • A sideway movement of the hand(s).
  • With a wave of the hand.
  • A group activity in a crowd imitating a wave going through water, where people in successive parts of the crowd stand and stretch upward, then sit. Usually referred to as "the wave"
  • Derived terms
    * Elliott wave * make waves * Mexican wave * waveband * wave field synthesis * wave function * waveguide * wavelength * wavelet * wave mechanics * wave number * wave packet * wave-particle duality * wave ski * wave train * wave vector * wavy
    Synonyms
    * (an undulation) (l)

    Etymology 3

    See waive.

    particle

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
  • (linguistics, sensu lato) A part of speech which can not be declined, an adverb, preposition, conjunction or interjection
  • * 1844 , E. A. Andrews: First Lessions in Latin; or Introduction to Andrews and Stoddard's Latin Grammar. (6th edition, Boston), p.91 ( at books.google)
  • 322. The parts of speech which are neither declined nor conjugated, are called by the general name of particles . 323. They are adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
  • * 1894 (2008), B. L. Gildersleeve & G. Lodge: Gildersleeve's Latin Grammar (reprint of the 3rd edition by Dover, 2008), p.9. ( at books.google)
  • The Parts of Speech are the Noun (Substantive and Adjective), the Pronoun, the Verb, and the Particles (Adverb, Preposition, and Conjunction)[.]
  • (linguistics, sensu stricto) A word that has a particular grammatical function but does not obviously belong to any particular part of speech, such as the word to in English infinitives or O as the vocative particle.
  • * {{quote-web
  • , date = 1965-06-04 , author = Shigeyuki Kuroda , title = Generative grammatical studies in the Japanese language , site = DSpace@MIT , url = http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/13006 , accessdate = 2014-02-24 , page = 38 }}
    In English there is no grammatical device to differentiate predicational judgments from nonpredicational descriptions. This distinction does cast a shadow on the grammatical sphere to some extent, but recognition of it must generally be made in semantic terms. It is maintained here that in Japanese, on the other hand, the distinction is grammatically realized through the use of the two particles wa and ga.
  • *
  • Traditional grammar typically recog-
    nises a number of further categories: for example, in his Reference Book of
    Terms in Traditional Grammar for Language Students'', Simpson (1982) posits
    two additional word-level categories which he refers to as ''Particle'', and
    ''Conjunction''. Particles include the italicised words in (58) below:
    (58) (a)      He put his hat ''on''
           (b)      If you pull too hard, the handle will come ''off''
           (c)      He was leaning too far over the side, and fell ''out''
           (d)      He went ''up
    to see the manager
  • (physics) Any of various physical objects making up the constituent parts of an atom; an elementary particle or subatomic particle.
  • * 2011 , & Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe , Allen Lane 2011, p. 55:
  • What, he asked himself, does quantum theory have to say about the familiar properties of particles such as position?
  • *{{quote-magazine, year=2012, month=March-April
  • , author=(Jeremy Bernstein) , title=A Palette of Particles , volume=100, issue=2, page=146 , magazine=(American Scientist) citation , passage=The physics of elementary particles' in the 20th century was distinguished by the observation of ' particles whose existence had been predicted by theorists sometimes decades earlier.}}

    Synonyms

    * See also

    Derived terms

    * aspect particle * modal particle * particle accelerator * particle beam * particle board * particle physics * tachyonic particle