File talk:Dipole.gif

I love the animation, but assert that something is wrong with the description.

a) The Frequency, as displayed, is 1.0Hz not 0.16Hz.

   Easy to see for yourself: 
      count the arrival of blue bands at any point on the picture-edge; 
      arrivals are spaced 1 second apart.
   So, periodicity =1.0 second, and frequency = 1/period = 1.0 Hz.
   Difficult for a viewer to imagine that the plot represents phase in radians.

b) I think the dipole shown is Horizontal, not Vertical.

   Phase shown is opposite between left-and-right, but not up-and-down:
   This implies that the dipole direction must be Horizontal, not Vertical.
   Remember a dipole is about like tiny (+) and (-) charges aligned on the axis,
     close together compared to the size of one's picture of the field they project.
   So a vertical dipole oscillator would have: 
      - matching fields left-&-right (in fact, all around dipole's "equator"), 
      - opposites up-&-down.  

c) (less important) it would be nice if it was specified more precisely what aspect of the field was being displayed.

   This plot can't be the magnitude of the electric field
      (magnitude is 3-D strength regardless of direction)
   because, in a dipole, neither electric nor magnetic fields 
      have places of zero strength as shown here on the vertical axis.
   Perhaps this display plots the x-, y- or z- component of the 3-D electric field.

respectfully, jimswen (talk) 17:40, 29 January 2009 (UTC)