Topic List

Types of Waves

Wave speed

Longitudinal Waves

Transmission of Waves

Transverse Waves

Reflection

Surface Waves

Refraction

Frequency

Superposition Principle

Wavelength

Interference

Period

Diffraction

Amplitude

Standing Waves & Resonance

Waves & Information

Marvin the Martian would like to send a message from Mars to Earth.
There are two ways of sending a message. He could enclose the
message in a rocket and physically send it to Earth. Or, he could send
some type of signal, maybe in the form of radio waves.
Information can be sent via matter or waves. If sent via waves,
nothing material is actually transmitted from sender to receiver. If
you talk to a friend, be it in
person or on the phone, you are
transmitting information via
waves. Nothing is physically
transported from you to your
friend. This would not be the
case, however, if you sent him
a letter.

Waves & Energy

Suppose Charlie Brown wants to wake up Snoopy. Some energy is

required to rouse Snoopy from his slumber. Like information, energy
can also be transmitted via physical objects or waves. Charlie Brown
can transmit energy from himself to Snoopy via Woodstock:
Woodstock flies over; his kinetic energy is physically transported in
the form a little, yellow bird. Alternatively, Charlie Brown could
send a pulse down a rope thats attached to Snoopys dog house. The
rope itself is not transported, but the pulse and its energy are!

pulse

Types of Waves
A mechanical wave is just a disturbance that propagate through a
medium. The medium could be air, water, a spring, the Earth, or even
people. A medium is any material through which a wave travels.
Mechanical wave examples: sound; water waves; a pulse traveling on
a spring; earthquakes; a people wave in a football stadium.
An electromagnetic wave is simply light of a visible or invisible
wavelength. Oscillating intertwined electric and magnetic fields
comprise light. Light can travel without mediumsuper, duper fast.
A matter wave is a term used to describe particles like electrons that
display wavelike properties. It is an important concept in quantum
mechanics.
A gravity wave is a ripple in the fabric of spacetime itself. They are
predicted by Einsteins theroy of relativity, but theyre very difficult
to detect.

Mechanical Waves: Three Types

Mechanical waves require a physical medium. The particles in the
medium can move in two different ways: either perpendicual or
parallel to direction of the wave itself.
In a longitudinal wave, the particles in the medium move parallel to
the direction of the wave.
In a transverse wave, the particles in the medium move perpendicular to the direction of the wave.
A surface wave is often a combination of the two. Particles typically
move in circular or elliptical paths at the surface of a medium.

Longitudinal Parallel
Transverse Perpendicular
Surface Combo

Longitudinal Waves
A whole bunch of kids are waiting in line to get their picture taken
with Godzilla. The bully in back pushes the kid in front of him, who
bumps into the next kid, and so on down the line. A longitudinal
pulse is sent through the line of kids. Its longitudinal because as
each kid gets bumped, he moves forwards, then backwards (red
arrow), parallel to the direction of the pulse. The location of the
pulse is the point where two kids are being compressed together.
The next slide shows how the pulse progresses
through the line.
pulse direction

Longitinal
Waves (cont.)

Ouch
!

C = Compression (high
kid density)

Ouch
!

R C

R = Rarefaction (low
kid density)

Ouch
!

R C

The compression (the

pulse) moves up the
line, but each kid keeps
his place in line.
I hope
Godzilla eats
that bully!

Sound is a Longitudinal Wave

As sound travels through air, water, a solid, etc., the molecules
of the medium move back and forth in the direction of the
wave, just like the kids in the last example, except the
molecules continually move back and forth for as long as the
sound persists. If the bully kept shoving the kid in front of
him, a series of pulses would be generated. If
he shoved with equal force each time and did
this at a regular rate, we would call these
pulses a wave. Similarly, when a speaker or a
tuning fork vibrates, it repeatedly shoves the
air in front of it, and a longitudinal wave
propagates through to the air. The speaker
shoves air molecules; the bully shoves people.
In either case, the components of the medium
must bump into their neighbors.

Transverse Waves

After a great performance at a drum and bugle corps contest, the

audience decides to start a wave in the stands. Each person rises and
sits at just the right time so the effect is similar to the pulse in Charlie
Browns rope. Like the Godzilla example, people make up the wave
medium here. But this is a transverse wave because, as the wave
moves across the stands, folks are moving up and down.
wave direction

Transverse Waves

(cont.)

In a transverse wave, molecules arent being compressed and spread

out as they are in a longitudinal wave. The reason a transverse wave
can propagate is because of the attraction between adjacent molecules.
Imagine if each person in the stands on the last slide were connected to
the person on his left and right with giant rubber bands. As soon the
person on one end stood up, the band stretches. The tension in the
band pulls his neighbor up, who, in turn, lifts the next guy.
The tension in the rubber bands is analogous to the forces connecting
particles of the medium to their neighbors. The colored sections of
rope tug on each other as the waves travels through them. If they
didnt, it would be as if the rope were cut, and no wave could travel
through it.

Surface Waves
Below the surface fluids can typically only transmit longitudinal
waves, since the attraction between neighboring molecules is not
as strong as in a fluid. At the surface of a lake, water molecules
(white dots) move in circular paths, which are partly longitudinal
and partly transverse. The molecules are offset, though: when
one is at the top of the circle, the one in front of it is near the top.
As in any wave, the particles of the medium do not move along
with the wave. The water molecules complete a circle each time
a crest passes by. Animation
wave direction

Breaking Waves

Waves break near the

shore because the
water becomes
shallow. Close to the
shore the ground
beneath the water
interferes with the
circular motions of the
water molecules as
they participate in a
passing wave.
Sandbars further off
shore can have the
same effect, much to
the delight of surfing
enthusiasts like Bart.

Seismic Waves
Seismic waves use Earth itself as their medium. Earthquakes produce
them and so does a nation when it carries out an underground nuclear
test. (Other countries can detect them.) Seismic waves can be
longitudinal, transverse, or surface waves. P and S type waves are
called body waves, since they are not confined to the surface. Rayleigh
waves do most of the shaking during a quake.
Name

Type

Info

P Wave

Longitudinal

Also known as primary, compressional,

or acoustic waves; fastest seismic wave

S wave

Transverse

Also known as secondary, or shear

waves; do not travel through fluids;

Rayleigh W
ave

Surface

Rolls along surface like a water wave;

large amplitude

Love Wave

Surface

Ground moves side to side as wave

moves forward

Mini Seismic Waves

Though we might not refer to them as
seismic, anything moving on the ground can
transmit waves through the ground. If you
stand near a moving locomotive or a heard
of charging elephants, you would feel these
vibrations. Even something as small as a
beetle generates pulses when it moves. These pulses can be detected
by a nocturnal sand scorpion. Sensors on its eight legs can detect both
longitudinal and surface waves. The scorpion can determine the
direction of the waves based on which legs feel the waves first. It can
determine the distance of the prey based on the time delay between the
fast moving longitudinal waves and the slower moving surface waves.
The greater the time delay, the farther away the beetle. This is the
same way seismologists determine the distance of a quakes epicenter.
Sand is not the best conductor of waves, so the scorpion will only be
able to detect beetles within about a half meter.

Wave Characteristics
Amplitude (A) Maximum displacement of particle of the medium
from its equilibrium point. The bigger the amplitude, the more energy
the wave carries.
Wavelength () Distance from crest (max positive displacement) to
crest; same as distance from trough (max negative displacement) to
trough.
Period (T) Time it takes consecutive crests (or troughs) to pass a
given point, i.e., the time required for one full cycle of the wave to pass
by. Period is the reciprocal of frequency: T = 1 / f.
Frequency (f ) The number of cycles passing by in a given time. The
SI unit for frequency is the Hertz (Hz), which is one cycle per second.
Wave speed (v) How fast the wave is moving (the disturbance itself,
not how fast the individual particles are moving, which constantly
varies). Speed depends on the medium. Well prove that v = f.

Amplitude & Wavelength

The red transverse wave has the same wavelength as the longitudinal
wave in the spring. (P to Q is one full cycle.) Note that where the spring
is most compressed, the red wave is at a crest, and where the spring is
most stretched (rarified), the red wave is at a trough. The amplitude in
the red wave is easy to see. In the longitudinal wave, the amplitude
refers to how far a particle on the spring moves to the left or right of its
equilibrium point. Often a graph like the red wave is used to represent
a longitudinal wave. For sound, the y-axis might be pressure deviation
from normal air pressure, and the x-axis might be time or position.

Frequency & Period

Riddle me this
Why is the
frequency of a wave
the reciprocal of its
period?

Answer:

Period = seconds per cycle.

Frequency = cycles per second.
Theyre reciprocals no matter
what unit we use for time. A
sound wave that has a frequency
of 1,000 Hz has a period of
1 / 1,000 of a second. This means
that 1,000 high pressure fronts are
moving through the air and
hitting your eardrum each second.

Speed, Wavelength, & Frequency

Barney Rubble, a.k.a. Barney the Wave Watcher, is excited because
he just made a discovery: v = f. With some high tech, prehistoric
equipment, Barney measures the wavelength of the incoming waves to
be 18 ft. He counts 10 crests hitting the shoreline every minute. So,
10 crests pass any given point
in a time of one minute. But
18 ft
10 crests corresponds to a
distance of 180 ft, which
means the wave is traveling
at 180 ft / min. This result is
the product of wavelength
and frequency, yielding the
result:

v = f

Harmonic Waves
Imagine a whole bunch of equal masses hanging from identical springs.
If the masses are set to bobbing at staggered time intervals, a snapshot
of the masses forms a transverse wave. Each mass undergoes simple
harmonic motion, and the period of each is the same. If the release of
the masses is timed so that the masses form a sinusoid at each point in
time, the wave is called harmonic. Right now, m4 is peaking. A little
later m4 will be lower and m3 will be peaking. The masses (the
particles of the medium) bob up and down but do not move
horizontally, but the wave does move horizontally.

m3
m1

m2

m4

m8

m5
m6

m7

m9
m10

wave direction

Making a Harmonic Wave

A generator attached to a rope moves up and down in simple harmonic
motion. This generates a harmonic wave in the rope. Each little piece
of rope moves vertically just like the masses on the last slide. Only the
wave itself moves horizontally. The time it takes the wave to move
from P to Q is the period of the wave, T. The distance from P to Q is
the wavelength, . So, the wave speed is given by: v = / T = f
(since frequency and period are reciprocals).
Since the generator moves vertically in SHM, the vertical position of
the black doo-jobber is given by: y(t) = A cos t. The doo-jobbers
period is given by T = 2 / . This is also the period of the wave.

Q
wave direction

Making a Non-harmonic Wave

If the black doo-jobber does not move in SHM, the wave it generates
will not be harmonic. As long as the generator has some sort of
periodic motion, the wave generated will have a well defined period
and wavelength. Here the generator pauses at the high and low points,
causing the wave to flatten.
If the wave had moved at a constant speed and changed direction
instantly, a saw-tooth wave would have been the result. Sound is not
a transverse wave, but a graph of pressure vs. time as a sound waves
pass by would look like a very few simple sinusoid in the case of a
pure tone. It would be a very complicated wave if the sound is a
musical instrument of someones voice.

Q
wave direction

Wave Speed on a Rope

If a pulse is traveling along a rope to the right at a speed v, from its
point of view its still and the rope is moving to the left at a speed v.
As the red segment of rope of length s rounds the turn in the pulse, a
centripetal force must act on it. The tension in the rope is F, and the
downward components of the tension vectors add to make the
centripetal force.
FC = m v 2 / r

2 F sin ( / 2) = m v 2 / r

2 F ( / 2) = m v 2 / r

(since the sine of an angle the angle itself in radians)

F = mv2/ r
m
/2
F

F r / m = v2
F s / m = v2
(since s = r )

(continued)
/2
F

v (rope)

Wave Speed on a Rope

(cont.)

If the rope is uniform density, then the mass per unit length is a
constant. Well call this constant . Thus, = m / s. From the last
slide we have:

v2 = F s / m = F /

v =

This shows that waves travel faster in materials that are stiff
(high tension) and light weight. Unit check: [N / (kg / m)]
= [N m / kg ] = [(kg m / s 2) m / kg ] = [m 2 / s 2] = m / s.
m
/2
F

/2
F

v (rope)

Credits
The following images were obtained for these websites:
Marvin the Martian

http://store.yahoo.com/rnrdist/warnerbrothers.html

Charlie Brown & Snoopy http://www.snoopy.com/

Godzilla http://www.cinescape.com/godzilla/
Drum & Bugle Corps (Cavaliers of Rosemont, IL)
http://www.cavaliers.org/

Sand Scorpion

http://www.aps.org/meet/MAR00/baps/vpr/layy3-03-04.html

Beach pic http://www.ssdsupply.com/hawaii.htm

Diffraction http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/sound/u11l3d.html
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/ECT/the_book/Chap1/Chapter1.html

Credits
Wave movies: Dr. Ken Russel, Kettering University
http://www.kettering.edu/~drussell/Demos.html
Standing wave animated gifs: Tom Henderson, Glenbrook South High School
http://www.physicsclassroom.com/Class/waves/U10L4b.html
Tacoma Narrows Bridge:
http://www.civeng.carleton.ca/Exhibits/Tacoma_Narrows/DSmith/fig06.gif