Hi all,
I am having difficulty finding answers to these - help would be appreciated!
When two waves (transverse or longitudinal) have the same frequency will they both undergo constructive interference if they meet? And if so what changes occur to the amplitude, frequency, speed, etc?
When a wave travels from one medium to the next what changes occur in terms of frequency, wavelength, amplitude, wave speed?
Good questions. Hopefully, I can help answer some of it here.
When a wave travels from one medium to the next what changes occur in terms of frequency, wavelength, amplitude, wave speed?
Let's separate this question into two different parts - sound waves vs. light waves.
In light waves, when you go from a medium that is less dense to a medium that is more dense, the velocity of the light wave changes. Do you recall the equation for n? n = c/v? Remember that c is largest speed at which a sound wave travels?
The larger the n means that the velocity is smaller. Smaller the velocity of light waves, the denser the medium. However, the frequency of light waves stays constant when you are changing mediums. The only time that the frequency of a light wave changes is when the source of the light actually changes (i.e. red light versus yellow light- yellow light has higher frequency or lower wavelength - remember ROYGBiV?)
How does wavelength relate to velocity? The smaller the wavelength, the smaller the velocity because frequency is held constant. So, if you are going into a "denser" medium with larger n, then that means that lamda will be smaller because velocity of the light wave goes down. Amplitude is energy. The lower the velocity, the lower the amplitude. The higher the amplitude, the higher the KE, which means higher the velocity.
I hope that clears some stuff up in terms of light waves.
Sound waves - this is interesting.
In sound waves, the faster velocity will be in a medium that's more dense. So, sound travels FASTEST in solids. Then liquids and slowest in gases.
Same thing goes for sound. The frequency of sound DOES NOT change when changing mediums. The only thing that changes is the velocity of sound and the wavelength of sound. For instance, if you are going from a liquid to a solid, the velocity of sound goes up, frequency stays the same, and the wavelength goes up. Same thing goes for amplitude. The higher the velocity, the greater the amplitude. (This would be a good place where you can see how the dampened oscillations of a pendulum relates to amplitude, etc.)
When two waves (transverse or longitudinal) have the same frequency will they both undergo constructive interference if they meet? And if so what changes occur to the amplitude, frequency, speed, etc
When two waves constructively interfere, the frequency goes up. This is termed resonance. I have no idea how it affects wavelength, speed, or amplitude. I can take an intuitive guess, but I am not certain on it. Hope that helps!!
