The Wave Equation — Where Everything Begins

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

At the end of Post 1, I mentioned the spring-mass chain: a row of masses connected by springs, which turns out to be the discrete skeleton underneath all wave physics in solids and metamaterials. Before we get there, though, we need something more fundamental. The spring-mass chain is useful precisely because it approximates something continuous, and that continuous something is governed by the wave equation. If you want to understand how metamaterials manipulate sound, you need to understand this equation first — where it comes from, what it says, and what happens when you start engineering the quantities inside it.

Mathematics on Conor MacDonald

The Wave Equation — Where Everything Begins