Before going into the realms of harmonics, which have been referred to a few times in the various quotes, I want to interject with another perspective, related to the above subject, which will require a rather large quote from the book, Turbulent Mirror, by John Briggs and David Peatt. They are talking about research on Solitons and Equipartition. To clarify, a Soliton is an unexpected, solitary (hence Soliton) wave: – whereas a normal wave tends to break up over time and lose energy, a Soliton is a wave that becomes reinforced and bound by other waves joining together and can pass through other waves without losing its integrity. As Peatt and Briggs put it:
A soliton is born on the edge. If too much energy is involved in the initial interaction, the wave breaks up into turbulence. If too little energy, the wave dissipates…nonlinear interactions at critical values don’t produce chaos, they produce spontaneous self-organizing forms. (B&P, p.120)