Destructive interference happens when two waves have opposite displacements. The pulses don’t destroy each other (as the name implies), but rather they cancel out the effect of each other when they interact with each other.
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They don’t have to cancel each other out completely to be destructive interference. They don’t even have to have the same amplitudes. (And actually, when two waves meet, they don’t even alter their path or alter the waveform itself after the interaction. They simply add or subtract when they interact, and then go on their merry way as they had been before the interaction when they’re done. It’s really quite amazing.)


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