Waves and Oscillations

The sun which is millions of miles away, supplies us the heat and light. The twinkling stars, the florescent tube lights, the electric bulbs and the candles provide us light. We often relax to the tunes of music from the radio set. The question is that how we receive these forms of energy. What is the mechanism of the energy motion?

Energy is transferred from one point to another point by the mechanism known as wave motion. Just as a pebble, when dropped into a quite pond, produces wave on the surface of water, similarly a source of energy generates waves which move in all directions with definite speed. When these waves are intercepted by an object, energy is transferred to it.

The waves are of different types:

(i)                 The waves which require a medium for their movement or propagation are called the mechanical waves. The examples are the sound waves, water waves etc. The mechanical waves can be classified into two types namely, the transverse waves and the longitudinal waves.

(ii)               There are other waves which do not require a medium for their propagation. These are known as electromagnetic waves. For example, light, heat, radio waves etc.

(iii)              There is also a third type of wave known as matter waves. We have just mentioned that the waves carry energy. A moving particle also carries energy in the form of its kinetic energy, so there must be some wave associated with the particle. These waves pilot the particle and move along with it. The effect of matter waves become prominent only when the mass of the particle is very small and the velocity is very high. Electrons which are particle when at rest, exhibits undulatory characteristics when accelerated to the velocities of the order of 10⁷ meters/second.

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Applets

Waves types

Sound waves

Speed of Sound Calculator

Decibels

Oscillation and waves (spring)

Transverse & longitudinal waves

Transverse and longitudinal waves

Transverse traveling waves

Standing longitudinal waves

Spin waves

Transmission of waves

Transmission of waves through dense material

Reflection of waves from boundaries

Wave reflection

Simple harmonic motion

Interference between two waves (point source)

Electromagnetic waves

Superposition of pulses

Fourier synthesis