Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. A wave vector is a vector representation of a wave. The wave vector has magnitude indicating wavenumber (reciprocal of wavelength), and the direction of the vector indicates the direction of wave propagation. The wave vector is most useful for generalizing the equation of a single wave into a description of a family of waves. As long as the family of waves all travel in the same direction and with the same wavelength, a single wave vector is valid for the entire family. The most common case of a family of waves that meets these requirements is the plane wave, in which the family of waves is also coherent, i.e. all the waves have the same phase.

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