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Undulatory   Listen
adjective
Undulatory  adj.  Moving in the manner of undulations, or waves; resembling the motion of waves, which successively rise or swell rise or swell and fall; pertaining to a propagated alternating motion, similar to that of waves.
Undulatory theory, or Wave theory (of light) (Opt.), that theory which regards the various phenomena of light as due to undulations in an ethereal medium, propagated from the radiant with immense, but measurable, velocities, and producing different impressions on the retina according to their amplitude and frequency, the sensation of brightness depending on the former, that of color on the latter. The undulations are supposed to take place, not in the direction of propagation, as in the air waves constituting sound, but transversely, and the various phenomena of refraction, polarization, interference, etc., are attributable to the different affections of these undulations in different circumstances of propagation. It is computed that the frequency of the undulations corresponding to the several colors of the spectrum ranges from 458 millions of millions per second for the extreme red ray, to 727 millions of millions for the extreme violet, and their lengths for the same colors, from the thirty-eight thousandth to the sixty thousandth part of an inch. The theory of ethereal undulations is applicable not only to the phenomena of light, but also to those of heat.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Undulatory" Quotes from Famous Books



... creation-hypothesis. And if this absurdity drives us back to primordial homogeneity, as before, we must remember that here, too, though not so evidently, we should have all the signs of an antecedent process that was non-existent. Life and death, corruption and integration, are parts of one undulatory process. Cut the wave where you will its curve claims to be finished in both directions and suggests a before as well as an after. If, in the very nature of things, the pendulum sways between confusion ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell

... researches (still incomplete) have been carried out to catalogue (according to their wave-length on the undulatory theory of light) all the lines of each chemical element, under all conditions of temperature and pressure. At the same time, all the lines have been catalogued in the light of the sun and the ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... present. Up to a time quite within the memory of a generation still on the stage, two hypotheses about the nature of light very unequally divided the scientific world. But the small minority has already prevailed: the emission theory has gone out; the undulatory or wave theory, after some fluctuation, has reached high tide, and is now the pervading, the fully-established system. There was an intervening time during which most physicists held ...
— Darwiniana - Essays and Reviews Pertaining to Darwinism • Asa Gray

... energetic faculties of human nature. This, however, does not make them suspect the motives or the habitual morality of those who remain in the creed in which they were nurtured. The difference is a difference of opinion, as purely as if we refused to accept the undulatory theory of light; and we treat it as such. Then reverse this. Why is it any more impossible for those who remain in the theological stage, who are not in the smallest degree sceptical, who in their ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... suddenly changing its horizontal for a vertical direction, it burst upward. The whole earth heaved with a sudden pang; it then gave a backward bound, even as a vessel shipping a sea. The motion then became undulatory, and spread far and wide as the report of a cannon, awakening every echo in the mountain. There was a rattle and clatter in the town, as if of a thousand wagons shooting down paving stones. The Ursuline steeple waved in the air like a reed vexed by the blast. ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various


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