Wavenumber Wavenumber In the physical sciences, the wavenumber (also wave number or repetency) is the spatial frequency of a wave, measured in cycles per unit distance or radians per unit distance. Whereas temporal frequency can be thought of as the number of waves per unit time, wavenumber is the number of waves per unit distance. In multidimensional systems, the wavenumber is the magnitude of the wave vector. The space of wave vectors is called reciprocal space. Wave numbers and wave vectors play an essential role in optics and the physics of wave scattering, such as X-ray diffraction, neutron diffraction, and elementary
Per cent mille because reactivity values tend to be small, so measuring in pcm allows reactivity to be expressed using whole numbers. Per cent mille A per cent mille or pcm is one one-thousandth of a percent. It can be thought of as a "milli-percent". It is commonly used in nuclear reactor engineering as a unit of reactivity. In nuclear reactor engineering, a per cent mille is equal to one-thousandth of a percent of the reactivity, denoted by Greek lowercase letter rho. Reactivity is a dimensionless unit representing a departure from criticality, calculated by: where k denotes the effective multiplication factor for the