University of St Andrews
School of Physics and Astronomy

8.  Travelling Waves

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Associated tutorial questions (St Andrews only)

• Velocity of a wave on a string - depends on string tension and mass per unit length - not full "derivation"
• Doppler effect - changes in observed frequency due to relative motion of source, observer, and medium
• Linear superposition - if there is more than one wave present at one place and time, the resultant disturbance is the algebraic sum of the disturbances due to the individual waves - Interactive Java Demo of superposition  Credits for demo
• From the University of Colorado, a nice Java simulation of wave addition for different amplitudes, phases, and frequencies.
• Phase changes on reflection - no phase shift for a free end of a string, half a cycle shift (p phase shift) for a string fixed at the end - Interactive Java Demo of Pulse reflection

Similar material to that presented in the lectures is available at:-

• Halliday, Resnick, & Walker - Chapters on:-    Waves-I

Associated tutorial questions (St Andrews only)
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Created by, and copyright of, Bruce Sinclair, University of St Andrews; last modified 27/11/01