Earth Science: Physics – Vibrations and Waves – Waves Everywhere
Waves are familiar in everyday life, but they are a more difficult concept to grasp than vibration. Wherever there are vibrations, waves can also occur.
A medium such as a gas or liquid is required to transmit acoustic or water waves, while electromagnetic waves of light and radio require no medium.
Small children experiment with waves in the bathtub and older children play in the waves at the beach. Our two most important senses, hearing and sight, use waves: acoustic waves or sound and light. Radio waves, infrared light, x-rays, and light are all electromagnetic waves with different frequencies. The creators of quantum physics were able to show that even electrons, atoms, and all materials have wave properties.
Origin and expansion
The origin of a wave is always a vibration: for example, the string of a violin being played. First this will cause a small volume of air to vibrate, which, in turn, causes its surrounding environment to vibrate and so on. Thus the state of motion vibration expands in all directions through the medium of air, which is receptive to vibration.
If the vibrations continue, the room will be filled over time by a typical wave pattern, which changes periodically at every point. If the original vibration was of short duration-for example, when a rock is thrown into the water—only a shortwave train is generated, which naturally dissipates and is eliminated due to friction.
Diffraction and interference
Two of the many wave phenomena are especially interesting: diffraction and interference. Both are based on Huygens’ Principle, named after Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695). According to this principle, a circular or spherical wave can originate from any point of a wave pattern with exactly the same frequency and wavelength.
So if a wave is traveling along a wall toward a corner, it can expand from this corner in the form of a spherical wave, as if it were suddenly set free. This diffraction teaches us a great deal about the properties of waves.
Constructive interference is where two waves superimpose in such a way that the crest of one wave will always be on top of the crest of the other wave. Their impacts combined result in especially strong local vibrations. In contrast, during destructive interference a crest is always on top of a trough. If both wave patterns have the same height, then the interfering waves cancel each other out entirely.
TSUNAMI
What was different about the monster wave on December 26, 2004, that re suited in a catastrophe? With normal water waves, only the surface of the wafer body is in motion; however, a tsunami brings not only the surface into motion but lifts and then drops an entire water column in the ocean
This column may be several miles tall The size of such a wave makes it tremendously powerful, and if it hits a coast-line, the entire wave energy is concentrated onto a very flat layer of water. This causes the water to move differently than in the open sea. It moves quickly and far with a high amount of destructive power