ang progerssive wave function i.e. F( k x - w t ) other than sin or cos?

Answer 1

Oh, absolutely. Square waves, for example, are used to modulate radar transmissions. Like the name sounds, each half cycle looks like a square (or rectangle) on an oscilloscope. One half of the cycle has the square up and the other half has it down.

I've never seen one in a practical context, but I've also formed triangular waves (1/2 up, 1/2 down) in EE lab. I suppose there is some use for these, but I don't know where it would be.

Needless to say, but I'll say it anyway, the effective voltage and current, and the power equations for these other shaped oscillating waves are different from those you learned for the more common sin/cos waves.

Answer 2

Nearly any shape you like. Good news is just about any function can be broken down into a sum of sines and cosines with different amplitudes and frequencies..think its called harmonic analysis or fourier analysis. Don't try this in your head though..you can get programmes to do it on computer.