dispersiivisen

Dispersiivinen is a Finnish adjective that translates to dispersive in English. It describes a property or phenomenon where something spreads out or separates into its constituent parts. In physics, the term is often used in the context of waves. A dispersive medium is one where the speed of a wave depends on its frequency. This means that different frequencies of the wave will travel at different speeds through the medium, causing them to spread out over time. A common example is white light passing through a prism. The prism is a dispersive medium, and the different colors (which correspond to different frequencies of light) are refracted at slightly different angles, resulting in a spectrum of colors. This separation of light into its constituent colors is a direct consequence of the dispersive nature of the prism. The term can also be applied more broadly to describe anything that tends to scatter or diffuse, such as the dispersal of seeds by wind or the scattering of particles in a fluid. The opposite of dispersive is non-dispersive, where the wave speed is independent of frequency.