what is the difference between a pulse and a wave?

Question

In relation to physics.

Answer 1

The pulse is a spurt of a wave. SONAR best exemplifies this. If the sub's captains says "give me one ping of the SONAR," he will get one pulse or spurt of one wave of sound. So he gets one wavelength L = vt of a sound wave, which is a compression wave because it oscillates fore and aft in the direction of travel.

In this case, oscillation is a misnomer. As there is but one pulse, the wave travels through water at velocity v and that one wave's energy compresses and releases water as the wave travels through the water. So the only time we'd see the compression/rarefaction is when that one wave passed over our microphones. It'd be a one time thing, no oscillations back and forth.

However, we could also send multiple pulses (pings); in which case, we'd see repeated compressions/rarefactions and that would be true oscillations.

Similar kind of things happens with light or EM waves. The difference there is that single pulses are hard to come by because light/EM travels so fast. Usually multiple pulses (multiple waves) results even when causing the light/EM for a very short time.

Answer 2

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A pulse is an envelope or packet containing an arbitrary number of wave forms.

A pulse is a wave packet containing broad range of frequencies.

A pulse ( wave packet) is a localized disturbance that results from the sum of many different wave forms.

The wave is the transport of disturbances in space, not associated with motion of the medium occupying this space as a whole.

In a wave (mechanical elastic) , the energy of a vibration is moving away from the source in the form of a disturbance within the surrounding medium

In electromagnetic wave medium is not essential for propagation of wave.
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Answer 3

pulse:
pluse only have crest or trough .
wave:
wave can have both crest and trough.