Unit 11, Wave Pulses and Traveling Waves
![By Malene Thyssen (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html), CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/) or CC BY-SA 2.5 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/DoW34d2rVj4uZzJtjqwFckMT0b4cWGRmztaoSJwjnGC4rGc4Qu3oT29zXZqGzRBVenACcusmGT2SY3XFsQ_JS4kjBYspspNyUvas_3NBgb3eoE4W=w1280)
This unit introduces waves as the result of coupled oscillations in a medium. A disturbance in a medium transfers energy. If the disturbance is opposed by a restoring force, the medium can be modeled as composed of many simple harmonic oscillators coupled together. This (coupled simple harmonic oscillators) is our simple model of a wave.
Wave characteristics, such as amplitude, length, and speed are examined. Topics include wave pulses, traveling waves, transverse waves, longitudinal waves, superposition, reflection from boundaries, Huygens' principle, and energy.