Standing Wave Experiment in Physics Classroom
What is the speed of the waves in the standing wave experiment?
Mr. Bateman creates a standing wave in the front of the classroom with the spring. S nodes form. The distance from Mr. Bateman to the cabinet is 6m. If a student times the spring moving back and forth and gets 0.2s for one cycle of the spring, how fast are the waves moving?
Answer:
The speed of a wave is equal to the wavelength divided by the period. The wavelength is the distance between two consecutive nodes, and the period is the time it takes for one complete cycle of the wave. In this case, the wavelength is 6 m and the period is 0.2 s. Therefore, the speed of the wave is 30 m/s. The answer is 30 m/s.
When conducting the standing wave experiment in the physics classroom, it is essential to understand the relationship between wave speed, wavelength, and period. In this experiment, Mr. Bateman creates a standing wave with S nodes in the spring.
The student measures the distance from Mr. Bateman to the cabinet, which is 6 meters, and times the spring moving back and forth, getting 0.2 seconds for one cycle of the spring. Using the formula for wave speed - speed = wavelength / period - we can calculate the speed of the waves.
In this case, the wavelength is equal to the distance between two consecutive nodes, which is given as 6 meters. The period is the time it takes for one complete cycle of the wave, which is measured as 0.2 seconds. By substituting these values into the formula, we find that the speed of the wave in the standing wave experiment is 30 meters per second.