Wakes and waves in N dimensions

An impulsive point excitation in a linear, nondispersive wave medium can produce an after-signal, which has been called a ``wake'' in the mathematical physics literature. Relations are derived between such wakes and the dimensionality of the space by regarding a point source in space of dimensionality N-2 as a line source in N-1 dimensions and as a plane source in N dimensions. The ``magic'' of one and three dimensions is discussed from a new point of view.