- Waves don’t display any repulsion towards each other.
- Therefore two wave patterns can overlap in the same region of the space without affecting each other.
- When two waves overlap their displacements add vectorially.
- This additive rule is referred to as the principle of superposition of waves.
- When two or more waves travelling through a medium arrive at a point of medium simultaneously, each wave produces its own displacement at that point independent of the others.
- Hence the resultant displacement at that point is equal to the vector sum of the displacements due to all the waves.
- The phenomenon of superposition will be discussed in detail in XIIth standard.