Longitudinal wave and seismic P-waves (created by earthquakes and explosions). In longitudinal waves, the displacement of the medium is parallel to the propagation of the wave, and waves can be either straight or round. A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases, is a good visualization. In the case of longitudinal harmonic sound waves, the frequency and wavelength can be described by the formula where: The quantity "x"/"c" is the time that the wave takes to travel the distance "x". The ordinary frequency ("f") of the wave is given by The wavelength
Madelung constant Madelung constant allows for the calculation of the electric potential "V" of all ions of the lattice felt by the ion at position "r" where "r" =|"r" - "r"| is the distance between the "i"th and the "j"th ion. In addition, If the distances "r" are normalized to the nearest neighbor distance "r" the potential may be written with formula_3 being the (dimensionless) Madelung constant of the "i"th ion The electrostatic energy of the ion at site formula_5 then is the product of its charge with the potential acting at its site There occur as many Madelung constants formula_3 in