Physics: 6 Waves Flashcards
What are the types of waves?
- Longitudinal
- Transverse
What are the four components of a transverse wave?
- Amplitude: distance from a point (trough or crest/peak) to its undisturbed position.
- Wavelength: distance between two repeating points of a wave (peak to peak, trough to trough)
- Trough: lowest point of a wave
- Crest/peak: highest point of a wave.
What are the two equations for frequency?
- frequency = velocity or wave speed / wavelength
- frequency (aka time for one wave/cycle) = 1 / period
What are the two components of longitudinal waves?
- Compressions: areas where it is close together.
- Rarefactions: areas where it is spread out.
What is the incident angle?
Angle between incident ray and normal
What is the reflection angle?
Angle between reflection ray and normal
What is the refraction angle?
Angle between refraction ray and normal
What happens when a wave, such as water, goes into a denser medium in a straight direction?
It slows down and the wavelength decreases (frequency remains the same) whilst moving in the same direction.
What happens when a wave, such as water, goes into a denser medium at an angle?
The side that hits the new medium first slows down and the wavelength decreases before the other side of the wave, causing the wave to change direction (frequency remains the same).
Which is denser: water, air or glass?
Glass - solid
What are the EM waves order for increasing wavelengths?
- Gamma rays
- X-ray
- UV radiation
- Visible light
- Infrared radiation
- Microwave
- Radio
What are the EM waves order for increasing frequency?
- Radio waves
- Microwaves
- Infrared radiation
- Visible light
- UV radiation
- X-ray
- Gamma rays
What is the use of each EM wave?
- Radio: television, radio.
- Microwaves: satellite communication, cooking food.
- Infrared: electrical heaters, cooking food, infrared cameras.
- Visible light: fibre optic communications.
- UV: energy efficient lamps, sun tanning
- X-rays and gamma rays: medical imaging and treatments.
