Wave questions?

Question

What are the following defined as and what is their formula?
Frequency
Amplication
Wavelength

Answer 1

Frequency = number of waves passing through a fixed point in a second; units: Hz



Amplitude / Amplication = height of the sine curve which affects the loudness of sound or the intensity of light.



Wavelength = the distance between two crests (or trough) of a wave; units: m



v = fw

where

v = velocity of wave in m/s

f = frequency of wave in Hz (or no. of waves/s)

w = wavelength

Answer 2

Frequency: is the number of cycles in a sec. You can also define the period as the time it takes to complete 1 cycle. So freq = 1/period: f = 1/T.



Amplication: I think you mean AMPLITUDE: This is the hight of a cycle. If you look at a sine wave y = sin(x), the plot goes up and down between 1 and -1 so the amplitude is defined as 1. Any amplitude can be determined as A in y = A*sin(x).



The wavelength is the distance between repeating units of a wave pattern.

Answer 3

The unit of frequency is Hz and is a measurement of how many oscillations pass a given point in space per second. This can be waves on the surface of the sea or electromagnetic waves.



Wavelength is the distance from one peak of a wave to the next and is given in units of length (metres for SI units).



The relationship between the two is V=FL where V is the wave phase velocity, F is the frequency and L (lambda) is the wavelength.



The amplitude is the maximum potential of the wave. For a water-wave this is proportional to the hight above water surface (difficult to see). For an electromagnetic wave the amplitude is the potential above zero.



A common wave equation is:



E = Asin(kx-wt)



Here, E is the actual potential at a given point in time (t) and spatial position (x). A is the amplitude of the wave. This introduces two new variables, k and w (omega)



k is the wavenumber and is usually given in physics to be 2pi/L (note that in some solid-state situations 1/L is prefered). w is the orbital frequency (how many cycles per sec) and is equal to 2piF



(I'm using pi here because I can't do the symbol for pi. I don't mean p times i)

Answer 4

The number of cycles per distance.

Increasing the height of these cycles.

The distance between the crests of these cycles.