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Waves can travel large distances, but the medium (water or string) itself has limited motion, isolating around a point of equilibrium as in simple harmonic motion. Waves consist of oscillations that move without carrying matter with them. Waves carry energy from one place to another.
Figure 1
Figure 1. Waves travel on a string. The wave travels to the right along the string. The particles of the string insulate back and forth.
Look at figure 2. First, we see a single-wave bulge or pulse. A wave pulse is produced by the hand holding the end of the rope and moving it up and down once. The pulse wave movement is to the right. The arrows show the speed of the string particles. As each subsequent section of string reaches its peak position, it is also pulled back down by the tension of adjacent sections of the string. Thus, the source of a traveling wave pulse is vibration (oscillation), and the cohesive forces between adjacent parts of the string cause the pulse to travel.
Figure 2
The source of any wave is vibration or oscillation. If the source vibrates sinusoidally in simple harmonic motion (if the medium is elastic), then the wave itself will have a sinusoidal shape in both space and time.
Figure 3
The important information from figure 3:
Crest : High point on a wave.
Trough : Lowest point of the wave.
Amplitude (A) : Peak height or maximum trough depth relative to equilibrium.
Wavelength : The distance between two consecutive peaks
Frequency (f) : the number of peaks passing a given point per unit time.
Period (T) : The time when two consecutive peaks pass the same point in space.
Wave velocity (v) : A wave crest moves one wavelength in one period.
Period equation
Wave velocity equation
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