OSCILLATIONS AND WAVES
Wave Motion
The easiest wave to visualize is a water wave. When a pebble is dropped in a calm pool of water, ripples travel out from the point where the pebble enters the water. The disturbance travels out from the center of the pattern, but the water does not travel with the wave. Mechanical waves—such as water waves, waves on a rope, waves in a spring, and sound waves—have two general characteristics:
- A disturbance is in some identifiable medium.
- Energy is transmitted from place to place, but the medium does not travel between two places.
For the sake of simplicity, idealized one‐dimensional waves on a rope and two‐dimensional water surface waves with no friction‐like forces provide the wave model. For ease of analysis, a pulse that is a single short wave will be used to illustrate wave characteristics that also hold true for more complex waves.
Transverse and longitudinal waves
Wave characteristics
Important basic characteristics of waves are wavelength, amplitude, period, and frequency. Wavelength is the length of the repeating wave shape. Amplitude is the maximum displacement of the particles of the medium, which is determined by the energy of the wave.
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