Required Practicals - Ripple Tank Flashcards
What is the goal of the ripple tank practical?
To use a ripple tank to measure wavelength, frequency and wave speed of water waves.
What is a ripple tank?
A shallow tray of water, with a vibrating bar underneath the water.
What is the vibrating bar connected to?
A power pack.
What happens when the vibrating bar vibrates?
It creates waves across the surface of the water.
What do we have above and below the ripple tank?
Above the ripple tank there is a lamp and below it there is a sheet of white paper.
What happens when light shines through the water?
It produces an image of the waves on the paper.
How do we record the waves’ movement?
Using a mobile phone and play back the recording at different speeds or freeze the image.
How do we measure the wavelength of waves?
Place a ruler on the paper.
Freeze an image of the waves.
Measure the distance between one wave and another for all waves.
Measure the total distance between wave 1 and the final wave.
Divide the total distance by the number of waves.
How do we calculate wave frequency?
Place a timer next to the paper and count the number of waves passing a point in ten seconds and divide by ten.
If there are 24 waves, for example, do 24/10 to get 2.4Hz.
How do you determine wave speed?
Use the wave equation where wave speed = frequency x wavelength.
Or watch one wave and measure distance travelled and time taken and use speed = distance / time.
Why may results for wave speed be different?
Measurement errors, such as timing of stopwatch.
