of these waves can be inferred from this general equation, without choosing specific values for the parameters. As another example, it may be that the vibrations of a drum skin after a single strike depend only on the distance from the center of the skin to the strike point, and on the strength of the strike. Then the vibration for all possible strikes can be described by a function . Sometimes the family of waves of interest has infinitely many parameters. For example, one may want to describe what happens to the temperature in a metal bar when it is initially heated at various temperatures at different points along its length, and then allowed to cool by itself in vacuum. In that case, instead of a scalar or vector, the parameter would have to be a function such that is the initial temperature at each point of the bar. Then the temperatures at later times can be expressed by a function that depends on the function (that is, a functional operator), so that the temperature at a later time is Differential wave equations Another way to describe and study a family of waves is to give a mathematical equation that, instead of explicitly giving the value of , only constrains how those values can change with time. Then the family of waves in question consists of all functions that satisfy those constraints — that is, all solutions of the equation. This approach is extremely important in physics, because the constraints usually are a consequence of the physical processes that cause the wave to evolve. For example, if is the temperature inside a block of some homogeneous and isotropic solid material, its evolution is constrained by the partial differential equation where is the heat that is being generated per unit of volume and time in the neighborhood of at time (for example, by chemical reactions happening there); are the Cartesian coordinates of the point ; is the (first) derivative of with respect to ; and is the second derivative of relative to . (The symbol "" is meant to signify that, in the derivative with respect to some variable, all other variables must be considered fixed.) This equation can be derived from the laws of physics that govern the diffusion of heat in solid media. For that reason, it is called the heat equation in mathematics, even though it applies to