PHY 2020 Chapter Notes - Chapter 19: Transverse Wave, Longitudinal Wave, Slinky
Document Summary
A vibration is a periodic wiggle in time. A periodic wiggle in both space and time is a wave. A sine curve is a pictorial representation of a wave produced by simple harmonic motion. In all cases, the motions are independent of mass. A long pendulum has a longer period than a short pendulum; that is, it swings to and fro less frequently than a short pendulum. A bob attached to a spring undergoing vertical simple harmonic motion can also trace a sine curve. As for a water wave, the high points of a sine wave are called crests and the low points are called troughs. The term amplitude refers to the distance from the midpoint to the crest of the wave. The wavelength of a wave is the distance from the top of one crest to the top of the next crest: the wavelength is the distance between any successive identical parts of the wave.
