Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Record the motion of a wave.
This project may be done by teams of 1-3 individuals. The goal is to create a record of the motion of a single wave. Look in your textbook at Figures 16.8 and 16.9 -- they are sequences of photographs showing the motion of waves along a Slinky. Your job is to make a similar record of the motion of a wave.
You may choose any medium you wish; make sure that you can excite waves on it easily, and that the waves are large enough in the transverse direction to be visible. You may choose waves on a string, or ripples moving through water, or something else. The waves should move freely through the medium; if the waves die out before they reach a reasonable distance, pick a different medium.
You may choose any reasonable method to capture images of the wave: still photographs (and strobe lighting?), home movies, videotape, etc. The only requirement is that the result shows the motion of one particular wave at different times in its life.
Submit a report which contains the pictures and descriptions of your experiment. Based on the pictures, you should be able to estimate the speed of the wave: do so. You may also include interesting items you discovered during the course of the procedure.
This page maintained by Michael Richmond. Last modified Apr 1, 1998.
Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.