Waves.

10 lessons98 min5 simulations10 practice questions

This chapter follows a disturbance as it travels: how the particles of a medium only oscillate while the pattern moves on, how to write a travelling wave as y = a sin(kx − ωt + φ), what fixes its speed on a string and in air, and what happens when waves meet, whether they add, reflect into standing waves with fixed nodes, or beat against each other. It builds directly on the oscillations chapter and sets up sound, strings, pipes and, later, light.

Also called: sound waves · Doppler effect · standing waves · beats