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http://missionscience.nasa.gov/ems/01_intro.

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Parts of a Wave
We will be considering the parts of a wave with the wave represented as a transverse wave as in the following diagram:

In the above diagram the white line represents the position of the medium when no wave is present. This medium could be imagined as a rope fixed at one end a few feet above the ground and held by you at the other end. The yellow line represents the position of the medium as a wave travels through it. We simply say that the yellow line is the wave. If we consider the rope mentioned before, this wave could be created by vertically shaking the end of the rope. Often, when several waves are traveling along a medium as shown above, the continuous group of waves is called a wave train.

Crest and Trough ( Top, Wave Home )


The section of the wave that rises above the undisturbed position is called the crest. That section which lies below the undisturbed position is called the trough. These sections are labeled in the following diagram:

Amplitude ( Top, Wave Home )


The term amplitude can have slightly different meanings depending upon the context of the situation. Its most general definition is that the amplitude is the maximum positive displacement from the undisturbed position of the medium to the top of a crest. This is shown in the following diagram:

In some discussions it is important to distinguish between positive and negative amplitudes. These displacements are shown in the following diagram:

Sometimes it is necessary to discuss an amplitude at a certain point along the wave. Several of these amplitudes are shown in the following diagram:

Notice in the above diagram that three of the amplitudes are positive and two are negative. Here are some other labeled examples of positive and negative amplitudes:

In general, if the question simply is 'What is the amplitude of the wave?', the answer follows the description of amplitude shown in the first of the above four amplitude diagrams. It is the maximum positive displacement of the medium from its undisturbed position to the top of a crest. In many discussions, though, the term amplitude takes on a slightly more complicated meaning. For example, in a discussion about wave interference the later descriptions of positive and negative amplitudes at certain points would surface. In such contexts, amplitude means the displacement of the medium from its undisturbed position to its disturbed position at a certain point along the wave. All of this becomes clear as you study waves further and understand the context of your situation. To sum up amplitude, we would say:

It is the displacement of the medium from its normal position. Usually this simply means the maximum positive displacement. Often, especially in discussions about interference, amplitude means the displacement of the medium from its normal position at certain points, and this displacement can be positive or negative.

Wavelength ( Top, Wave Home )


The wavelength of a wave is the distance between any two adjacent corresponding locations on the wave train. This distance is usually measured in one of three ways: crest to next crest, trough to next trough, or from the start of a wave cycle to the next starting point. This is shown in the following diagram:

Actually, the a wavelength exists between any point on a wave and the corresponding point on the next wave in the wave train. A few of such distances are shown below:

Frequency ( Top, Wave Home )


Frequency is often not termed as a part of a wave, but it makes sense to introduce its meaning in this section. Frequency refers to how many waves are made per time interval. This is usually described as how many waves are made per second, or as cycles per second. The following interactive diagram lets you adjust the frequency of the wave train. (The animation may jitter a tiny bit the moment that you change frequency. This means nothing.)

If ten waves are made per second, then the frequency is said to be ten cycles per second, written as 10 cps. Usually, we use the unit Hertz to state frequency. A frequency of 10 cps is noted as a frequency of 10 Hertz. So, one cycle per second is one Hertz, as in: 1 cps = 1 Hertz The unit Hertz is abbreviated this way: 1 Hertz = 1 Hz
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Angular frequency
For this section, it's important to remember two things. 1.
2. As we saw in Section 1.5, a sound wave is essentially just a ``side view'' of a rotating wheel. Therefore the higher the frequency, the more revolutions per second the wheel turns. Angles can be measured in radians instead of degrees. Also, that this means that we're measuring the angle in terms of the radius of the circle.

We now know that the frequency of a sinusoidal sound wave is a measure of how many times a second the wave repeats itself. However, if we think of the wave as a rotating wheel, then this means that the wheel makes a full revolution the same number of times per second. We also know that one full revolution of the wheel is 360 or 2 radians.

Consequently, if we multiply the frequency of the sound wave by 2 , we get the number of radians the wheel turns each second. This value is called the angular frequency or the radian frequency and is abbreviated .

(4.5)

The angular frequency can also be used to determine the phase of the signal at any given moment in time. Let's say for a moment that we have a sine wave with a frequency of 1 Hz, therefore . If it's really a sine wave (meaning that it started out heading positive with a value of 0 at time 0 or ), then we know that the time in seconds, multiplied by the angular frequency will give us the phase of the sine wave because we rotate radians every second. This is true for any frequency, so if we know the time instantaneous phase using Equation 3.6. in seconds, then we can find the

(4.6)

Usually, you'll just see this notated as

as in

Phase of a wave http://www.indiana.edu/~emusic/acoustics/phase.htm


Phase denotes the particular point in the cycle of a waveform, measured as an angle in degrees. It is normally not an audible characteristic of a single wave (but can be when we using very low-frequency waves as controls in synthesis). It is a very important factor in the interaction of one wave with another, either acoustically or electronically. When waveforms of either the same or differing phases are combined, they interfere with each other and their instantaneous amplitudes are summed to create a new composite wave. This is a fairly simple-to-predict process with electronic circuits, but is far more complex in the realm of acoustic sounds as we will see below. For waves of differing phases, the fraction of a period between peaks is the phase difference and is also expressed in degrees, as above with the sine and cosine waves. Two waves with the same frequency and phase will combine to create a single sound of greater amplitudethis is called constructive interference.

Two identical waves 180 degrees out of phase will completely cancel each other out in a process called phase cancellation or destructive interference.

Often there is a combination of both destructive and constructive interference as pictured below in a mix of a sine wave and cosine wave of equal amplitude and 7

frequency. Notice how the result is a sinus-shaped wave of slightly greater amplitude than either component, but slightly out of phase with both.

In real-world acoustic environments, constructive and destructive interference occurs constantly due to room acoustics and other factors. In fact, interference between the sound source and reflected waves are key to producing standing waves. Sometimes taking a small step to the side may completely change the timbral characteristic of a sound because it alters the phase relationship of the source and its reflections. Stereo microphone pairs that are improperly placed can inadvertently lead to unwanted phase cancellations at certain frequencies.

Wave interference http://zonalandeducation.com/mstm/physics/waves/int erference/intrfrnc.html


During the time when one wave passes through another we say that the waves interfere. It is really not correct to say that the waves collide or hit, although this is often how such an interaction is termed. When the crest of one wave passes through, or is superpositioned upon, the crest of another wave, we say that the waves constructively interfere. Constructive interference also occurs when the trough of one wave is superpositioned upon the trough of another wave. During any wave interference the shape of the medium is determined by the sum of the separate amplitudes of each wave. We often say that when waves interfere, amplitudes add. Using the arrow buttons step through the above animation to see how the amplitudes add during constructive interference. Notice that in this animation the crest of the red wave constructively interferes with the crest of the blue wave.

During the time when one wave passes through another we say that the waves interfere. It is really not correct to say that the waves collide or hit, although this is often how such an interaction is termed. When the crest of one wave passes through, or is superpositioned upon, the trough of another wave, we say that the waves destructively interfere. During any wave interference the shape of the medium is determined by the sum of the separate amplitudes of each wave. We often say that when waves interfere, amplitudes add. During destructive interference, since the positive amplitudes from one crest are added to the negative amplitudes from the other trough, this addition can look like a subtraction. Using the arrow buttons step through the above animation to see how the amplitudes add during destructive interference. Notice that in this animation the crest of the red wave constructively interferes with the trough of the blue wave. Critical Angle

The least Angle of Incidence at which total internal Reflection takes place. The angle of incidence in a denser medium, at an Interface between the denser and less dense medium, at which the Light is refracted along the interface. When the critical angle is exceeded, the light is totally reflected back into the denser medium.

ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY
When you tune your radio, watch TV, send a text message, or pop popcorn in a microwave oven, you are using electromagnetic energy. You depend on this energy every hour of every day. Without it, the world you know could not exist. Electromagnetic energy travels in waves and spans a broad spectrum from very long radio waves to very short gamma rays. The human eye can only detect only a small portion of this spectrum called visible light. A radio detects a different portion of the spectrum, and an x-ray machine uses yet another portion. NASA's scientific instruments use the full range of the electromagnetic spectrum to study the Earth, the solar system, and the universe beyond.

OUR PROTECTIVE ATMOSPHERE


Our Sun is a source of energy across the full spectrum, and its electromagnetic radiation bombards our atmosphere constantly. However, the Earth's atmosphere protects us from exposure to a range of higher energy waves that can be harmful to life. Gamma rays, xrays, and some ultraviolet waves are "ionizing," meaning these waves have such a high energy that they can knock electrons out of atoms. Exposure to these high-energy waves can alter atoms and molecules and cause damage to cells in organic matter. These changes to cells can sometimes be helpful, as when radiation is used to kill cancer cells, and other times not, as when we get sunburned.

ATMOSPHERIC WINDOWS
Electromagnetic radiation is reflected or absorbed mainly by several gases in the Earth's atmosphere, among the most important being water vapor, carbon dioxide, and ozone. Some radiation, such as visible light, largely passes (is transmitted) through the 10

atmosphere. These regions of the spectrum with wavelengths that can pass through the atmosphere are referred to as "atmospheric windows." Some microwaves can even pass through clouds, which make them the best wavelength for transmitting satellite communication signals. While our atmosphere is essential to protecting life on Earth and keeping the planet habitable, it is not very helpful when it comes to studying sources of high-energy radiation in space. Instruments have to be positioned above Earth's energy-absorbing atmosphere to "see" higher energy and even some lower energy light sources such as quasars. ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES Electricity can be static, like the energy that can make your hair stand on end. Magnetism can also be static, as it is in a refrigerator magnet. A changing magnetic field will induce a changing electric field and vice-versathe two are linked. These changing fields form electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic waves differ from mechanical waves in that they do not require a medium to propagate. This means that electromagnetic waves can travel not only through air and solid materials, but also through the vacuum of space. In the 1860's and 1870's, a Scottish scientist named James Clerk Maxwell developed a scientific theory to explain electromagnetic waves. He noticed that electrical fields and magnetic fields can couple together to form electromagnetic waves. He summarized this relationship between electricity and magnetism into what are now referred to as "Maxwell's Equations."

Heinrich Hertz, a German physicist, applied Maxwell's theories to the production and reception of radio waves. The unit of frequency of a radio wave -- one cycle per second -is named the hertz, in honor of Heinrich Hertz.

DESCRIBING ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY


The terms light, electromagnetic waves, and radiation all refer to the same physical phenomenon: electromagnetic energy. This energy can be described by frequency, wavelength, or energy. All three are related mathematically such that if you know one, you can calculate the other two. Radio and microwaves are usually described in terms of 11

frequency (Hertz), infrared and visible light in terms of wavelength (meters), and x-rays and gamma rays in terms of energy (electron volts). This is a scientific convention that allows the convenient use of units that have numbers that are neither too large nor too small.

FREQUENCY
The number of crests that pass a given point within one second is described as the frequency of the wave. One waveor cycleper second is called a Hertz (Hz), after Heinrich Hertz who established the existence of radio waves. A wave with two cycles that pass a point in one second has a frequency of 2 Hz.

WAVELENGTH
Electromagnetic waves have crests and troughs similar to those of ocean waves. The distance between crests is the wavelength. The shortest wavelengths are just fractions of the size of an atom, while the longest wavelengths scientists currently study can be larger than the diameter of our planet!

ENERGY
An electromagnetic wave can also be described in terms of its energyin units of measure called electron volts (eV). An electron volt is the amount of kinetic energy needed to move an electron through one volt potential. Moving along the spectrum from long to short wavelengths, energy increases as the wavelength shortens. Consider a jump rope with its ends being pulled up and down. More energy is needed to make the rope have more waves.

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What is the Electromagnetic Spectrum?


Scientists have found that many types of wave can be arranged together like the notes on a piano keyboard, to form a scale. The 'low notes' have a low frequency and a long wavelength. The 'high notes' have a high frequency and a short wavelength. When we say "wave", you might think of a wave on the sea. There, it's nice and obvious what's going on - the surface of the sea is vibrating up and down. With a sound wave, it's the air particles that are vibrating. So what's vibrating when an electromagnetic wave passes by? That's not so easy. Electromagnetic waves are vibrations of magnetic and electric fields. So they don't need air in order to travel. They don't need anything to be there at all.

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http://www.lbl.gov/MicroWorlds/ALSTool/EMSpec/EMSpec2.html

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http://www.darvill.clara.net/emag/emagxray.htm Radio Waves

How they're made


Radio waves are made by various types of transmitter, depending on the wavelength. They are also given off by stars, sparks and lightning, which is why you hear interference on your radio in a thunderstorm. 15

Uses
Radio waves are the lowest frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum, and are used mainly for communications. Radio waves have the longest wavelengths in the electromagnetic spectrum. They range from the length of a football to larger than our planet. You can tune a radio to a specific wavelengthor frequencyand listen to your favorite music. The radio "receives" these electromagnetic radio waves and converts them to mechanical vibrations in the speaker to create the sound waves you can hear. Radio waves are divided into:Long Wave, around 1~2 km in wavelength. The radio station "Atlantic 252" broadcasts here. Medium Wave, around 100m in wavelength, used by BBC Radio 5 and other "AM" stations. VHF, which stands for "Very High Frequency" and has wavelengths of around 2m. This is where you find stereo "FM" radio stations, such as BBC Radio 1and Further up the VHF band are civilian aircraft and taxis. UHF stands for "Ultra High Frequency", and has wavelengths of less than a metre. It's used for Police radio communications, television transmissions and military aircraft radios - although military communications are now mostly digital and encrypted.

Dangers

Large doses of radio waves are believed to cause cancer, leukaemia and other disorders. Some people claim that the very low frequency field from overhead power cables near their homes has affected their health. Microwaves

How they're made


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Microwaves are basically extremely high frequency radio waves, and are made by various types of transmitter. In a mobile phone, they're made by a transmitter chip and an antenna, in a microwave oven they're made by a "magnetron". Their wavelength is usually a couple of centimetres. Stars also give off microwaves.

Uses
Microwaves cause water and fat molecules to vibrate, which makes the substances hot. So we can use microwaves to cook many types of food. Mobile phones use microwaves, as they can be generated by a small antenna, which means that the phone doesn't need to be very big. The drawback is that, being small, they can't put out much power, and they also need a line of sight to the transmitter. This means that mobile phone companies need to have many transmitter towers if they're going to attract customers. Microwaves are also used by fixed traffic speed cameras, and for radar, which is used by aircraft, ships and weather forcasters. The most common type of radar works by sending out bursts of microwaves, detecting the "echoes" coming back from the objects they hit, and using the time it takes for the echoes to come back to work out how far away the object is.

Dangers
Prolonged exposure to microwaves is known to cause "cataracts" in your eyes, which is a clouding of the lens, preventing you from seeing clearly (if at all!) So don't make a habit of pressing your face against the microwave oven door to see if your food's ready! Recent research indicates that microwaves from mobile phones can affect parts of your brain - after all, you're holding the transmitter right by your head. Other research is inconclusive, although there is a feeling that you're more vulnerable if you're young and your brain is still growing. So the advice is to keep calls short. That's right - we're supposed to advise teenagers not to spend too long on the phone. What could possibly go wrong there? 17

Infra Red

How they're made


Infra red waves are just below visible red light in the electromagnetic spectrum ("Infra" means "below"). You probably think of Infra-red waves as heat, because they're given off by hot objects, and you can feel them as warmth on your skin. Infra Red waves are also given off by stars, lamps, flames and anything else that's warm - including you.

Uses
Infra-red waves are called "IR" for short. They are used for many tasks, for example, remote controls for TVs and video recorders, and physiotherapists use heat lamps to help heal sports injuries. IR is also used for short-range communications, for example between mobile phones, or for the Dolby Screentalk headset system used in some cinemas. Because every object gives off IR waves, we can use them to "see in the dark".Night sights for weapons sometimes use a sensitive IR detector. Remember the film, "Predator"? Apart from remote controls, one of the most common modern uses for IR is in the field of security. "Passive Infra-Red" (PIR) detectors are used in burglar alarm systems, and to control the security lighting that many people have fitted outside their houses. These detect the Infra-Red emitted by people and animals. You've probably seen TV programmes in which police helicopters track criminals at night, using "thermal imaging" cameras which can see in the dark. These cameras use Infra-Red waves instead of "ordinary" light, which is why people look bright in these pictures. Similar cameras are also used by fire crews and other rescue workers, to find people trapped in rubble. Weather forecasters use satellite pictures to see what's heading our way. Some of the images they use are taken using IR cameras, because they show cloud and rain patterns more clearly. 18

Dangers
The danger to people from too much Infra-Red radiation is very simple - overheating. Visible Light

How they're made


Our eyes can detect only a tiny part of the electromagnetic spectrum, called visible light. This means that there's a great deal happening around us that we're simply not aware of, unless we have instruments to detect it. Light waves are given off by anything that's hot enough to glow. This is how light bulbs work - an electric current heats the lamp filament to around 3,000 degrees, and it glows white-hot. The surface of the Sun is around 5,600 degrees, and it gives off a great deal of light. White light is actually made up of a whole range of colours, mixed together. We can see this if we pass white light through a glass prism - the violet light is bent ("refracted") more than the red, because it has a shorter wavelength - and we see a rainbow of colours. This is called 'dispersion', and allows us to work out what stars are made of by looking at the mixture of wavelengths in the light.

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Uses

We use light to see things! As the Sun sends so much light towards our planet, we've evolved to m particular wavelengths in order to sense our environment.

Lasers are also used in laser printers, and in aircraft weapon aiming systems. Light waves can also be made using a laser. This works differently to a light bulb, and produces "coherent" light. Lasers are used in Compact Disc & DVD players, where the light is reflected from the tiny pits in the disc, and the pattern is detected and translated into sound or data. Lasers are also used in laser printers, and in aircraft weapon aiming systems.

Orange light, for example, has a frequency of about 5 x 1014 Hz (often quoted as 5 x 108 MHz - megahertz). That means that 5 x 1014 wave peaks pass a given point every second. Light has a constant speed through a given substance. For example, it always travels at a speed of approximately 3 x 108metres per second in a vacuum. This is actually the speed that all electromagnetic radiation travels - not just visible light. There is a simple relationship between the wavelength and frequency of a particular colour of light and the speed of light:

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. . . and you can rearrange this to work out the wavelength from a given frequency and vice versa:

These relationships mean that if you increase the frequency, you must decrease the wavelength. The frequency of light and its energy Each particular frequency of light has a particular energy associated with it, given by another simple equation:

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You can see that the higher the frequency, the higher the energy of the light. So . . . have you got this sorted out? Try it! Light which has wavelengths of around 380 - 435 nm is seen as a sequence of violet colours. Various red colours have wavelengths around 625 - 740 nm. Which has the highest energy? The light with the highest energy will be the one with the highest frequency - that will be the one with the smallest wavelength. In other words, violet light at the 380 nm end of its range.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum


Visible light The diagram shows an approximation to the spectrum of visible light.

Important: This isn't a real spectrum - it's a made-up drawing. The colours are only an approximation, and so are the wavelengths assigned to them. It doesn't pretend to be accurate!

The main colour regions of the spectrum are approximately: colour region violet blue 22 wavelength (nm) 380 - 435 435 - 500

cyan green yellow orange red

500 - 520 520 - 565 565 - 590 590 - 625 625 - 740

Don't assume that there is some clear cut-off point between all these colours. In reality, the colours just merge seamlessly into one another - much more seamlessly than in my diagram! Ultra Violet

How they're made


Ultra-Violet light is made by special lamps, for example, on sun beds. It is given off by the Sun in large quantities. We call it "UV" for short. The photo shows a UV lamp in a chip shop. The lamp gives off UV (which you can't see) as well as violet light (which you can see). The UV attracts insects, which are electrocuted by high-voltage wires near the lamp - so they won't land on the food and contaminate it.

Uses
Uses for UV light include getting a sun tan, detecting forged bank notes in shops, and hardening some types of dental filling. You also see UV lamps in clubs, where they make your clothes glow. This happens because substances in washing powder "fluoresce" when UV light strikes them - they absorb the UV and then re-radiate the energy at a longer wavelength. The lamps are sometimes called "blacklights" because we can't see the UV coming from them. 23

When you mark your posessions with a security marker pen, the ink is invisible unless you shine a UV lamp at it. Ultraviolet rays can be used to kill microbes. Hospitals use UV lamps to sterilise surgical equipment and the air in operating theatres. Food and drug companies also use UV lamps to sterilise their products. Suitable doses of Ultraviolet rays cause the body to produce vitamin D, and this is used by doctors to treat vitamin D deficiency and some skin disorders.

Dangers
Large doses of UV can damage the retina in your eyes, so it's important to check that your sunglasses will block UV light. The cheaper sunglasses tend not to protect you against UV, and this can be really dangerous. When you wear sunglasses the pupils of your eye get bigger, because less light reaches them. This means that if your sunglasses don't block UV, you'll actually getmore ultraviolet light in your eyes than if you didn't wear them, although you won't notice at the time. So before you buy sunglasses, check that they offer UV protection! Large doses of UV cause sunburn and even skin cancer. Fortunately, the ozone layer in the Earth's atmosphere screens us from most of the UV given off by the Sun. Think of a sun tan as a radiation burn! X-rays

How they're made


X-rays are very high frequency waves, and carry a lot of energy. They will pass through most substances, and this makes them useful in medicine and industry to see inside things. X-rays are given off by stars, and strongly by some types of nebula. An X-ray machine works by firing a beam of electrons at a "target". If we fire the electrons with enough energy, X-rays will be produced.

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Uses
X-rays are used by doctors to see inside people. The machines are managed by a trained x-ray technician. They pass easily through soft tissues, but not so easily through bones. We send a beam of X-Rays through the patient and onto a piece of film, which goes dark where X-Rays hit it. This leaves white patches on the film where the bones were in the way. Sometimes a doctor will give a patient a "Barium Meal", which is a drink of Barium Sulphate. This will absorb X-rays, and so the patient's intestines will show up clearly on a X-Ray image. X-Rays are also used in airport security checks, to see inside your luggage. They are also used by astronomers - many objects in the universe emit X-rays, which we can detect using suitable radio telescopes. Lower energy X-Rays don't pass through tissues as easily, and can be used to scan soft areas such as the brain

Dangers
X-Rays can cause cell damage and cancers. This is why Radiographers in hospitals stand behind a shield when they X-ray their patients. Although the dose is not enough to put the patient at risk, they take many images each day and could quickly build up a dangerous dose 25

themselves. Gamma Rays

How they're made


Gamma rays are given off by stars, and by some radioactive substances. They are extremely high frequency waves, and carry a large amount of energy. They pass through most materials, and are quite difficult to stop - you need lead or concrete in order to block them out.

Uses

Because Gamma rays can kill living cells, they are used to kill cancer cells without having to resor

This is called "Radiotherapy", and works because cancer cells can't repair themselves like healthy damaged by gamma rays. Getting the dose right is very important!

There's also targeted radiotherapy, where a radioactive substance is used to kill cancer cells - bu be taken up by a specific part of the body, so the rest of the body only gets a low dose. An exam radioactive iodine to treat cancer in the thyroid gland.

Radioactivity is particularly damaging to rapidly dividing cells, such as cancer cells. This also explains why damage is done by radiotherapy to other rapidly dividing cells in the body such as the stomach lining (hence nausea), hair follicles (hair tends to fall out), and a growing foetus (not because of mutations, but simply major damage to the baby's rapidly dividing cells).

Gamma rays kill microbes, and are used to sterilise food so that it will keep fresh for longer. This is known as "irradiated" food. Gamma rays are also used to sterilise medical equipment.

Dangers
Gamma rays cause cell damage and can cause a variety of cancers. They cause mutations in growing tissues, so unborn babies are especially 26

vulnerable.

Multiplexing
Multiplexing is sending multiple signals or streams of information on a carrier at the
same time in the form of a single, complex signal and then recovering the separate signals at the receiving end. In analog transmission, signals are commonly multiplexed using frequency-division multiplexing (FDM), in which the carrier bandwidth is divided into subchannels of different frequency widths, each carrying a signal at the same time in parallel. In digital transmission, signals are commonly multiplexed using time-division multiplexing (TDM), in which the multiple signals are carried over the same channel in alternating time slots. In some optical fiber networks, multiple signals are carried together as separate wavelengths of light in a multiplexed signal using dense wavelength division multiplexing(DWDM).
Multiplexing has been around for ages. As a briefly mentioned above, multiplexing is used to send and receive multiple segments (or packets) of data. The main advantage of multiplexing is that you can send a lot data over 1 physical line. It was first used in telephone networks to relay voice conversations over twisted [wire] pairs. There are several types of multiplexing: Frequency Division Multiplexing Time Division Multiplexing

Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM)


FDM was developed to work with early telephone networks. It worked by dividing the freqencies to support multiple users. For instance, with a standard sound spectrum (20 Hz - 20,000 Hz) the frequencies would be equally divided to support 5 or so users per physical line. Note that in this case, users are given some of the frequency all the time. FDM is still used with cable TV, some older analog cellular systems, and most commonly YOUR FM RADIO! See the figure below:

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Time Division Multiplexing (TDM)


TDM was developed later (late 1950's) with new "digital" technology. This works a little different than FDM, in that users are given all of the frequency some of the time. The way TDM actually works is pretty complicated, so I'm not going to explain it in much detail. However, the process involves converting signals from analog to digital. TDM not only allows more data to be sent over a physical medium, it provides a better quality of service (QoS). TDM comes in two flavors, Synchronous TDM and Statistical TDM. Synchronous TDM is widely used with T carriers and ISDN. Statistical TDM is more complex but more efficient. It makes better decisions about transmitting bandwidth.

Switching technology
In the next three subsections, we present the three switching techniques used in networks: circuit switching, datagram packet switching and virtual circuit packet switching.

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Circuit switching

Figure 1.1: Circuit switching. The two different bitstreams flow on two separate circuits. Circuit switching is the transmission technology that has been used since the first communication networks in the nineteenth century. In circuit switching, a caller must first establish a connection to a callee before any communication is possible. During the connection establishment, resources are allocated between the caller and the callee. Generally, resources are frequency intervals in a Frequency Division Multiplexing (FDM) scheme or more recently time slots in a Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) scheme. The set of resources allocated for a connection is called a circuit, as depicted in Figure 1.1. A path is a sequence of links located between nodes called switches. The path taken by data between its source and destination is determined by the circuit on which it is flowing, and does not change during the lifetime of the connection. The circuit is terminated when the connection is closed. In circuit switching, resources remain allocated during the full length of a communication, after a circuit is established and until the circuit is terminated and the allocated resources are freed. Resources remain allocated even if no data is flowing on a circuit, hereby wasting link capacity when a circuit does not carry as much traffic as the allocation permits. This is a major issue since frequencies (in FDM) or time slots (in TDM) are available in finite quantity on each link, and establishing a circuit consumes one of these frequencies or slots on each link of the circuit. As a result, establishing circuits for communications that carry less traffic than allocation permits can lead to resource exhaustion and network saturation, preventing further connections from being established. If no circuit can be established between a sender and a receiver because of a lack of resources, the connection is blocked.

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A second characteristic of circuit switching is the time cost involved when establishing a connection. In a communication network, circuit-switched or not, nodes need to lookup in a forwarding table to determine on which link to send incoming data, and to actually send data from the input link to the output link. Performing a lookup in a forwarding table and sending the data on an incoming link is called forwarding. Building the forwarding tables is called routing. In circuit switching, routing must be performed for each communication, at circuit establishment time. During circuit establishment, the set of switches and links on the path between the sender and the receiver is determined and messages are exchanged on all the links between the two end hosts of the communication in order to make the resource allocation and build the routing tables. In circuit switching, forwarding tables are hardwired or implemented using fast hardware, making data forwarding at each switch almost instantaneous. Therefore, circuit switching is well suited for long-lasting connections where the initial circuit establishment time cost is balanced by the low forwarding time cost. The circuit identifier (a range of frequencies in FDM or a time slot position in a TDM frame) is changed by each switch at forwarding time so that switches do not need to have a complete knowledge of all circuits established in the network but rather only local knowledge of available identifiers at a link. Using local identifiers instead of global identifiers for circuits also enables networks to handle a larger number of circuits. Traffic engineering (TE) consists in optimizing resource utilization in a network by choosing appropriate paths followed by flows of data, according to static or dynamic constraints [39]. A main goal of traffic engineering is to balance the load in the network, i.e., to avoid congestion on links on a network while other links are under-utilized. To achieve such goals, traffic engineering methods can vary from offline capacity planning algorithms to automatic, dynamic changes. Since circuit switching allocates a fixed path for each flow, circuits can be established according to traffic engineering algorithms. On the other hand, circuit switching networks are not reactive when a network topology change occurs. For instance, on a link failure, all circuits on a failed link are cut and communication is interrupted. Special mechanisms that handle such topological changes have been be devised. Traffic engineering can alleviate the consequences of a link failure by pre-planning failure recovery. A backup circuit can be established at the same time or after the primary circuit used for a communication is set up, and traffic can be rerouted from the failed circuit to the backup circuit if a link of the primary circuit fails. Circuit switching networks are intrinsically sensitive to link failures and rerouting must be performed by additional traffic engineering mechanisms.

Datagram packet switching


Conceived in the 1960's, packet switching is a more recent technology than circuit switching which addresses a disadvantage of circuit switching: the need to allocate resources for a circuit, thus incurring link capacity wastes when no data flows on a circuit. 30

Packet switching introduces the idea of cutting data on a flow into packets which are transmitted over a network without any resource being allocated. If no data is available at the sender at some point during a communication, then no packet is transmitted over the network and no resources are wasted. Packet switching is the generic name for a set of two different techniques: datagram packet switching and virtual circuit packet switching. Here, we give an overview of datagram packet switching.

Figure 1.2: Datagram Packet Switching. Packets from a given flow are independent and a router can forward two packets from the same flow on two different links. Different from circuit switching, datagram packet switching does not require to establish circuits prior to transmission of data and terminate circuits after the transmission of data. The switches, called routers, have to make a lookup in the forwarding table, called routing table, for each incoming packet. A routing table contains a mapping between the possible final destinations of packets and the outgoing link on their path to the destination. Routing tables can be very large because they are indexed by possible destinations, making lookups and routing decisions computationally expensive, and the full forwarding process relatively slow compared to circuit switching. In datagram packet switching networks, each packet must carry the address of the destination host and use the destination address to make a forwarding decision. Consequently, routers do not need to modify the destination addresses of packets when forwarding packets. Since each packet is processed individually by a router, all packets sent by a host to another host are not guaranteed to use the same physical links. If the routing algorithm decides to change the routing tables of the network between the instants two packets are sent, then these packets will take different paths and can even arrive out of order. In Figure 1.2 for instance, packets use two different paths to go from User 1 to User 5. Second, on a network topology change such as a link failure, the routing protocol will automatically recompute routing tables so as to take the new topology into account and avoid the failed link. As opposed to circuit switching, no additional traffic engineering algorithm is required to reroute traffic. Since routers make routing decisions locally for each packet, independently of the flow to which a packet belongs. Therefore, traffic engineering techniques, which heavily rely on

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controlling the route of traffic, are more difficult to implement with datagram packet switching than with circuit switching.

Virtual circuit packet switching

Figure 1.3: Virtual circuit packet switching. All packets from the same flow use the same virtual circuit. Virtual circuit packet switching (VC-switching) is a packet switching technique which merges datagram packet switching and circuit switching to extract both of their advantages. VC-switching is a variation of datagram packet switching where packets flow on so-called logical circuits for which no physical resources like frequencies or time slots are allocated (see Figure 1.3). Each packet carries a circuit identifier which is local to a link and updated by each switch on the path of the packet from its source to its destination. A virtual circuit is defined by the sequence of the mappings between a link taken by packets and the circuit identifier packets carry on this link. This sequence is set up at connection establishment time and identifiers are reclaimed during the circuit termination. We have seen the trade-off between connection establishment and forwarding time costs that exists in circuit switching and datagram packet switching. In VC-switching, routing is performed at circuit establishment time to keep packet forwarding fast. Other advantages of VC-switching include the traffic engineering capability of circuit switching, and the resources usage efficiency of datagram packet switching. Nevertheless, a main issue of VC-Switched networks is the behavior on a topology change. As opposed to Datagram Packet Switched networks which automatically recompute routing tables on a topology change like a link failure, in VC-switching all virtual circuits that pass through a failed link are interrupted. Hence, rerouting in VC-switching relies on traffic engineering techniques. In practice, major implementations of VC-switching are X.25 [70], Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM [6]) and Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS [50]). The Internet, today's most used computer network, is entirely built around the Internet Protocol (IP), which is responsible for routing packets from one host to another. Because of the central role of IP in the Internet, we now discuss how ATM and MPLS interact with IP. 32

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