PAPER 4 Flashcards
What is a wave?
an oscillation that transfers energy
What are sound and water waves?
- mechanical waves
- need a medium (matter) to travel through unlike electromagnetic waves
What are longitudinal waves?
- soundwaves
- direction of vibration of individual air molecules is the same as the direction of the wave
What are transverse waves?
- direction of vibration is at right angles to the direction of travel of the wave
- if you make a transverse wave on a spring, the individual coils move up and down, but the energy is transferred horizontally
- ripples on water
What is amplitude?
- distance from the middle to the top (crest) or bottom (trough) of a wave
What is wavelength?
- distance from one point on a wave to the same point on the next wave
- metres
What is frequency?
- number of waves, or oscillations, per second
- Hz, hertz
What is the time period?
- the time for one wave to pass a given point
- seconds
apply formulae relating velocity, frequency and wavelength
wave velocity (m/s) = frequency (Hz) x wavelength (m)
Describe absorption of wave energy
Provide 3 examples
Common examples of absorption of wave energy:
- waves hitting the beach usually give most of their energy to the sand
- sunlight landing on a face is mostly absorbed, warming the skin
- sound waves hitting thick curtains give up their energy and the sound is muffled
Describe transmission of wave energy
Provide 3 examples
Common examples of transmission of wave energy:
- sea waves passing a shallow area continue with their energy mostly unchanged
- light passing through a glass window continues with over 95% of its energy
- ultrasound waves scanning a baby pass from flesh into bone and continue with enough energy for the machine to detect the echo
Describe reflection of wave energy
an echo
What is ultrasound?
- a sound of a frequency greater than 20,000 Hz
- has a very small wavelength, so it can be focused into a beam
- a transmitter beams ultrasound waves into the mother
- the waves reflect from the different boundaries
- the machine calculates the distances using time and velocity, and uses those distances to produce an image
Describe the ear
- designed to detect, amplify and convert sound into an electrical signal
- sound waves enter the ear canal and cause the eardrum to vibrate
- three small bones transmit these vibrations to the cochlea, which produces electrical signals which pass through the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are interpreted as sound.
Why does hearing (audition) change due to aging?
- hairs in cochlea have a natural frequency
- if a vibration is applied to cochlea hair at their natural frequency, they will vibrate with a very big amplitude (resonance)
- hair in the cochlea have different lengths and resonate at different frequencies of sound
- range of frequencies you can hear depend on the range of lengths of hair in your cochlea
- as you age, the hair in the cochlea get shorter, making it more difficult to hear higher frequencies
What are electromagnetic waves?
- transverse
- are transmitted through space where all have the same velocity
- transfer energy from source to absorber (some transfer information, eg. microwaves sent to satellites)
- consist of oscillating electric and magnetic fields
Outline the electromagnetic spectrum
Radio-waves Micro-waves Infrared Visible light Ultraviolet X-rays Gamma Rays
R-G = decreasing wavelength and increasing frequency
Give examples of some practical uses of electromagnetic waves
Microwaves = communication with satellites, WiFi and bluetooth
Radio waves = TV and radio stations (add sound and picture information to radio waves)
Infrared - remote controls to televisions via pulses & cooks food in an oven/grill
Micro wave - in a microwave, the water and fat in food absorb the microwaves, which heats up the outside of the food (conduction transfers energy to the middle)
Visible light - lasers in CDs, DVDs, and Blu-ray disks
Ultraviolet - helps to produce vitamin D (strong bones) & helps to detect forged bank notes
How can ultraviolet be potentially hazardous?
- can damage or kill cells
Good:
- kills bacteria in water (sterilises it)
Bad:
- can damage DNA in skin cells (cells may grow rapidly and cause skin cancer)
- ultraviolet exposure can cause cataracts, which makes corneas cloudy
How can X-rays be potentially hazardous?
- can damage or kill cells
Good:
- can kill skin cancer or other cancer cells
Bad:
- can damage your cells and cause cancer
- a radiographer operating on an X-ray machine stands behind a lead screen or in another room whilst the machine is on
How can gamma rays be potentially hazardous?
- can damage or kill cells
Good:
- can kill cancer cells
- can kill bacteria on food
Bad:
- can damage or kill the cells in your body
How are infrared waves used for medical imaging?
- A thermal imaging camera produces a thermogram (an image that shows regions of different temperatures) (thermograms can show problems with blood flow in blood vessels)
- Pixels inside a CCD (charge-coupled device - eg. A phone camera) absorb infrared and produce an image
- Colours are added by a computer
- Skin will emit more infrared radiation if it is hot due to injury or infection
How are X-rays used for medical imaging?
- Bones absorb many X-rays (soft tissues such as skin and muscle do not)
- Photographic film darkens when it absorbs X-rays and shows the details of a person’s internal structure
- A CCD (charged-coupled device) can detect X-rays
- Colours on an X-ray show differences in intensity due to different densities of the material that the X-rays have travelled through (higher density material = absorbs more X-rays)
- Computerised tomography = when a computer uses X-rays to make an image that looks like a slice through your body = produces CT scans
How are gamma rays used for medical imaging?
- used as tracers to treat problems with organs
- tracers are also used to find leaks in underground pipes (more gamma rays will be detected from a point above a leak than in the rest of the pipe)
- a doctor injects a patient with a tracer (a radioactive substance that emits gamma rays)
- patient’s organ absorbs the tracer
- the doctor diagnoses problems from the CCD images