Unit 9 Post - 7/14: That's the WAVE!

From the cooperation of everyone in a large stadium, to the crashing beaches of our island, to the passionate twangs of music - waves are everywhere. Even in physics! Waves are a disturbance in energy caused by vibration that acts in a medium, the most effective one being a solid because the molecules are closer together and can transfer said energy more efficiently.

The different parts of a wave are the crest, trophs, and amplitudes. The help us measure the waves length and speed. A wave that's moving slowly has a low frequency and a long wavelength, while a wave that is moving quickly has a high frequency and a short wavelength.

Waves can interact with each other too! Unlike the normal physics of mass, waves can occupy the same space at the same time because of a property called superposition! Then two waves combine with each other, to briefly create a wave that is the sum of the two initial waves, its called constructive interference. When two waves of equal magnitude that are moving in the oposite direction and are oposite values (one positive one negative) interact, they cancel each others energies out for a moment resulting in a flat line - this is called deconstructive interference.

A special wave, called a standing wave, is created when two waves of equal wave speed and magnitude are moving in the opposite direction and interact. This video is a demonstration of that in which our shoulders are the nodes - parts of the standing wave that are stationary, and our hands are the anti-nodes - parts of the standing wave that are moving.