Travelling waves

Understandings:

• Travelling waves
• Wavelength, frequency, period and wave speed
• Transverse and longitudinal waves
• The nature of electromagnetic waves
• The nature of sound waves
• Amplitude and intensity

Applications and skills:

• Explaining the motion of particles of a medium when a wave passes through it for both transverse and longitudinal cases
• Sketching and interpreting displacement–distance graphs and displacement–time graphs for transverse and longitudinal waves
• Solving problems involving wave speed, frequency and wavelength
• Investigating the speed of sound experimentally
• Solving problems involving amplitude, intensity and the inverse square law

Guidance:

• Students will be expected to derive c=fλ
• Students should be aware of the order of magnitude of the wavelengths of radio, microwave, infra-red, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray and gamma rays