Incoming links: Wave equation
Besides being useful in engineering, it was very important historically from a "development of mathematics point of view", e.g. it was the initial motivation for the Fourier series.
Some interesting properties:
- TODO confirm: for a fixed boundary condition that does not depend on time, the solutions always approaches one specific equilibrium function.This is in contrast notably with the wave equation, which can oscillate forever.
- TODO: for a given point, can the temperature go down and then up, or is it always monotonic with time?
- information propagates instantly to infinitely far. Again in contrast to the wave equation, where information propagates at wave speed.
Sample numerical solutions:
Solving partial differential equations with the Fourier series Updated 2025-05-29 +Created 1970-01-01
See: math.stackexchange.com/questions/579453/real-world-application-of-fourier-series/3729366#3729366 from heat equation solution with Fourier series.
Separation of variables of certain equations like the heat equation and wave equation are solved immediately by calculating the Fourier series of initial conditions!
This section talks about solvers/simulators dedicated solving the wave equation. Of course, any serious solver will likely be able to solve a wider range of PDE, so this section contains mostly fun toys. For more serious stuff see: Section "PDE solver".
JavaScript toy solvers:
- jtiscione.github.io/webassembly-wave/index.html circular domain, create waves with mouse click
- dionyziz.com/graphics/wave-experiment/ with useless 3D WebGL visualization :-), waves with mouse click. Solving itself done on CPU, not GPU.