Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
What are waves? They can be described briefly as disturbances in a medium which transfer energy and information from point A to point B. The key fact is that no physical object actually travels from point A to point B --- and yet both energy and information make the trip.
As we will see, the mathematical description of waves should look very familiar to you, now that you have been studying simple harmonic motion. There's just one additional twist that we'll introduce, which describes the manner in which a wave travels.
Copyright © Michael Richmond.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.