Cecil Moore wrote:
Jim Kelley wrote:
I think he might have said it because he's not particularly good with
words. If anything, he probably should have said that standing waves
should just be called interference patterns.

I'll buy that, Jim. I believe that Hecht left out the adjective,
"EM". If he meant standing waves don't deserve to be called EM waves,
I agree 100%. However, standing waves seem to meet the broad definition
of "wave".

I could be wrong, but don't E-fields and H-fields from traveling waves
superpose to form net E-fields and H-fields? Wouldn't the net fields
have vectors whose direction and magnitude are determined by the
vectors which correspond to the traveling wave fields?

Of course. Now try to convince Gene of that fact of physics. In
spite of his earlier assertions about the differences between
traveling waves and standing waves that agreed with my side of
the argument, he seems to have switched sides. (For political
reasons)?

Cecil,

I have no idea why you would introduce "political reasons" into this,
but no matter. My head hurts from pounding it into the brick wall, so I
will give up.

It would be really amusing to see you scramble to rotate the vector axis
of the magnetic field (or the E-field) as it reflects from an interface.
Since the E-field and H-field are related by curl relationships as shown
in the Maxwell equations, it would be interesting to see how one could
have related E-fields and H-fields at "0 degrees" and "180 degrees" as
you claim. As a self-proclaimed math expert I am sure you understand the
properties of the curl operator.

This is very basic stuff, and it is in the standard textbooks, probably
even in Hecht.

73,
Gene
W4SZ