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Yes, waves have several important properties.

The first property is the type of wave - mechanical (string waves, water waves, acoustic etc), electromagnetic (light, microwaves), gravitational (of use to general relativity), probability (of use in quantum)

The actual wave is determined by 4 main properties, The amplitude of the wave (how big it is), the wavenumber (where it is going and what is its wavelength), frequency (how fast it is oscillating), and phase (only really useful when waves interfere, so don't worry about this).

Obviously this is a very simplistic analysis, so I would recommend the excellent text by A.P. French, called waves and oscillations, to learn more about waves at an early undergrad level. If in high school, most physics and some chem textbooks have excellent descriptions.

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15y ago

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