Reusable cognitive primitives
Waves
A disturbance that travels and carries energy from place to place without carrying the material itself along with it.
Where it appears
Dependencies & synergies
Derived from the graph’s real structure — 21 concepts across 23 disciplines carry this pattern. Every figure is a count, not a score.
How many concepts carrying this pattern are seen through each discipline.
Other thinking patterns that recur on the same concepts — the more shared concepts, the more often they co-occur.
What kinds of relationships the carrying concepts form — the relational signature of the pattern.
Concepts where this pattern does the most cross-disciplinary work — each reaches disciplines beyond its own.
- Electromagnetic radiationreachesAcousticsAtmospheric ScienceBiomedical EngineeringEngineeringGeographyGeoinformaticsMedicineOceanographyRadiologyRemote SensingTelecommunications EngineeringThermodynamics
- TimbrereachesAudio EngineeringCognitive ScienceElectroacousticsEthnomusicologyMusic ProductionMusic TheoryPhoneticsPhysicsPoeticsSignal Processing
- WavereachesAstronomyBiologyElectromagnetismEngineeringEnvironmental EngineeringMechanicsMusicNutrition ScienceQuantum Physics
- SignalreachesBiologyComputer ScienceMathematicsPhysiologySignal ProcessingStatisticsTelecommunications Engineering
- Harmonic seriesreachesAudio EngineeringCognitive ScienceMathematicsMusicMusic ProductionMusicologyPsychoacoustics
- Gravitational wavereachesAcousticsAstrophysicsOceanographyOpticsPhysicsRelativity
Carrying concepts that others in the same pattern build on (they depend on or follow from these).
Examples across disciplines
Sound is a pressure wave: air molecules jostle their neighbours, passing the vibration to your ear.
Light is an electromagnetic wave that needs no medium and carries the Sun's energy to Earth.
Ocean swells and earthquake waves move energy across huge distances.
How this pattern travels
Interpreted from where the pattern recurs in the atlas — structural transfer and coverage, not a claim it is universally the "best" model.
Recurs across 23 disciplines over 21 carrier concepts — concentrated (71% of carriers in one field).
structural · Structural recurrence in the atlas — a pattern is a reasoning lens, not a law.
8 of its 21 carrier concepts are themselves cross-disciplinary connectors.
structural · Structural recurrence in the atlas — a pattern is a reasoning lens, not a law.
Explicit "where it breaks" notes exist for 0 of 5 annotated assignments.
curated · Curated boundary annotations — absence is a representation gap, not evidence the model has no limits.
Currently dark in the atlas: no origin recorded · no boundary annotations.
atlas representation · Describes the current Thinking OS representation, not the model itself.
Coverage matrix
How these concepts distribute across domains and concept families — real counts, not a score.
Knowledge timeline
Real, sourced key dates of these concepts.
- c. 1021Refraction · Formalization · Physics
- 1831Standing wave · Discovery · Physics
- 1842Doppler effect · Formalization · Physics
- 2015Gravitational wave · Discovery · Astronomy
The statistical fingerprint
How the 21 concepts that exercise this pattern distribute — from the graph, not a ranking.
Disciplinary fingerprint
Carrier concepts under each illuminating lens.
How settled its carriers are
Epistemic status of the concepts that exercise this pattern.
3 of 5 explained assignments cite a source; the rest are editorial interpretations. None is externally validated.
✕ That a wave carries matter forward; usually the medium oscillates in place while only energy travels.
You have seen this model in one place. Where else could it apply — and where would the analogy break?
Beat frequency →The wave moves; the stuff it moves through mostly stays put — like a ripple crossing a pond.
- Recurs across 23 disciplines.
- 57 concepts exercise this thinking pattern.
Derived from the graph — a pattern is a reasoning lens, not a law.
Is something travelling through a medium while the medium itself stays roughly in place — carrying energy or information but not matter?
Keep this question handy when you meet something new — it helps you notice the pattern, not just name it.