Now it’s time for a little more math because the physics problems are going to get a little harder.
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The wave equation for transverse and longitudinal waves moving in the +x direction looks like this:
where ym is the amplitude of the wave, κ is the angular wave number, ω is the angular frequency, and (κx-ωt) is the phase.
The wavelength L and the wave number k are found by the following equation:
where K is the number of waves per meter.
The period (T) and the frequency (ν) are related to ω by the following equation:
The main wave speed equation is given by:
Note that the first letter v is for velocity, and the last letter in the equation is the greek letter “nu” (ν) for frequency.
The problems in the video involve using the first equation that relates the distance and time to find the amplitude, wave number, and frequency of a wave. (This is a typical problem that you’ll see in college level physics.)
Click here to go to next lesson on Waves on a Stretched String.
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