Animation 2
A uniform plane wave is a wave, which does not depend on two of the three spatial coordinates in a Cartesian system. The coordinate it depends on indicates the direction of propagation. A powerful wind represents an almost perfect plane wave: its strength is almost the same, hundreds of meters along its front.
Following Maxwell’s equation, we show that the plane electromagnetic wave, whose E and H vectors do not depend on x and y, is in fact a 1-D wave along the z-axis. If E is

(incident EM plane wave), then H appears in the form

where η is the intrinsic impedance of the medium: |
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Alternatively, if E is

(reflected wave), then H appears as

Both the incident and reflected waves are traveling waves: at any moment of time, the wave is a translated version of its initial waveform.
Observe two independent traveling plane waves: an incident and a reflected wave. They have a Gaussian waveform.
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