Owen Duffy wrote:
Cecil, would you state the superposition principle as you know it?

I'll just quote Hecht on that. He gives the three
dimensional differential wave equation and follows it
up with a linear combination of individual waves in
an equation that cannot be reproduced here and says,

"Known as the *Principle of Superposition*, this property
suggests that the resultant disturbance at any point in a
medium is the algebraic sum of the separate constituent
waves."

The unreproducible equation essentially says that the
total wave function is equal to the algebraic sum of
the individual wave functions.

Hecht goes on to treat the forward wave and reflected
wave as the "separate constituent waves", something
that we have been told by the "reflected waves don't
exist" gurus on this newsgroup, is an invalid thing
to do.

It seems to me that the superposition principle gives us
permission to consider the forward and reflected waves
separately and "algebraically sum" the results. That is
exactly what the S-Paramater analysis is based upon.
The S-Parameter analysis considers a1 to be the incident
forward wave and a2 to be the incident reflected wave.
They are treated separately and then "algebraically
summed".
--
73, Cecil http://www.w5dxp.com