Layers revealed by scattered wave filtering

  Waves occur in almost all branches of physics. We are going to study waves, but here we will not assume knowledge of physics and differential equations. We will use only assumptions about the general principles of delay, continuity, and energy conservation. The results will be directly applicable to sound waves, water waves, light in thin films, normal incident elastic waves of both pressure and shear type, electromagnetic waves, transmission lines, electrical ladder networks, and other such things. The methods can also be applied to diffusion problems. Our first main objective is to solve the problem of calculating wave fields given reflection coefficients. Our second main objective is to gain the ability to calculate the reflection coefficients given the observed waves.