Waves Definition and 1000 Threads

I am curious as to what the maximum amplitude of gravitational waves is. I have read that the maximum amplitude as such is equal to two but I cannot seem to find again a reference that states this clearly.

Homework Statement Hi, I'm stuck on some question.. There are given to waves in the following equation: The question asks to find the energy density of them, and after it to find the kinetic and the potential energy in t = 2.5 seconds. V = | 2 | [m/s] T = 4 [N] p (density) = 1 [KG/M]...

I am having a problem with understanding concepts related to the speed of a wave. Here are my thoughts laid out: 1) The speed of a wave is dependent only on the medium 2) When a wave crosses from a less dense medium into a more dense medium (or visa versa) the speed of the wave is always...

Homework Statement I have a simple problem relating to the superposition of plane EM waves that I'd to try out using complex notation. Could anyone run through the work to see if my understanding is right? Many thanks in advance! The incident E bit of the wave is $$\vec{E}_I = E_0 \sin(ky -...

Gravitational waves are quadrupoles, they bend and stretch spacetime. Does the expansion of spacetime due to gravitational waves exceed flat (Minkowski) spacetime or is flat spacetime it's limit?

Homework Statement A cell phone sends and receives electromagnetic waves in the microwave frequency range. Explain the physics of how an oscillator creates these waves. Homework Equations n/a The Attempt at a Solution An electromagnetic wave is created by the functioning of the oscillator...

Homework Statement I don't understand how all the particles in a progressive wave can have the same amplitude. Surely they're all moving along the wave therefore cannot have the same amplitude. Homework EquationsThe Attempt at a Solution

Hi. Are all transverse waves plane waves ? Are all plane waves transverse ? I'm confused about the difference. I know the difference between transverse and longitudinal waves but I'm not sure on how plane waves fit into the picture ? Thanks

A question about the light-waves and the double-slit experiment: Light can be polarized: If you turn a polarization sheet in a polarized beam of light, you can see that polarized light has an angle. So the light-wave is transverse (right?) But how does a transverse wave ‘bend’ as it goes...

Homework Statement While sitting in a large pool that has a wave generator situated in the center, you text your friend, who is sitting much closer to the wave generator. If the amplitude of the generated wave is A at your friend's location from the generator (d=5.0m), what is the amplitude of...

Homework Statement When a workman strikes a steel pipeline with a hammer, he generates both longitudinal and transverse waves. The two types of reflected waves return 2.4 s apart. How far away is the reflection point? (For steel, vL = 6.2 km/s, vT = 3.2 km/s). Homework Equations Unknown...

Homework Statement In a resonance tube experiment, a closed organ pipe of length 120 cm resonates ,when tuned with a tuning fork of length 120cm resonates,when tuned with a tuning fork of length 340 hz.If water is poured into the pipe ,then (speed of sound in air=340 ms^-1) (A) minimum length...

The question is: in a total reflection setup, we have an evanescent waves created in the second medium, under the separation surface. If this medium is highly adsorbing, would then affect the reflected light ? Let's say the first medium has adsorption zero, while the second is highly adsorbing...

Homework Statement Two long strings P and Q ,each having linear mass density 1.2 x 10^-2 are stretched by a different tension 4.8 N and 7.5 N respectively and are kept parallel to each other with their left ends at x=0.Wave pulses are produced on the strings at t=0 on string P and at t=20ms at...

I am doing a term paper on G. Waves and I have a couple of questions about them. - How do we know that the G. Waves detected by LIGO on September 14, 2015, come from 1.5 billion light years? - How is Einstein's Theory related to them?

When a wave encounters the shallow water of a headland the shallow section slows while the deeper section continues traveling at a faster speed. This causes refraction of the wave ray towards the shallower headland section For wave rays encountering perpendicular a shallow headland does...

The wave equation in one space dimension can be written as follows: .A traveling wave which is confined to one plane in space and varies sinusoidally in both space and time can be expressed as combinations of What is the difference between these two wave equations?? And is traveling wave always...

Does Hyugens principle apply in three dimensions ? If a surface wave (for simplicity an ocean wave) is propagating along the x-axis we know that this wave ray is a point source for wavelets on the y-axis but what about the z axis? If this diagram was 3d would we see a spherical wave front...

Homework Statement In a photoelectric effect experiment, a monochromatic plane wave of light falls on a metal plate. The electric field in the light wave at a point near the plate varies according to E=E_0 \cos (\omega t). This results in a saturation current of 6 μA. If instead, the light wave...

Hi, I am trying to code ultrasonic transducer radiation in water using angular spectrum of plane waves. I am having difficulties in the sampling and fft. If anybody has an idea about this can you please help me out? I can paste the code once i get some response. Thanks for your help!

Homework Statement Consider a harmonic wave given by $$\Psi (x, t) = U(x, y, z) e^{-i \omega t}$$ where ##U(x, y, z)## is called the complex amplitude. Show that ##U## satisfies the Helmholtz equation: $$ (\nabla + k^2) U (x, y, z) = 0 $$ Homework Equations Everything important already in...

Homework Statement Consider a harmonic wave given by $$\Psi (x, t) = U(x, y, z) e^{-i \omega t}$$ where ##U(x, y, z)## is called the complex amplitude. Show that ##U## satisfies the Helmholtz equation: $$ (\nabla + k^2) U (x, y, z) = 0 $$ Homework Equations Everything important already in...

Homework Statement "...you were presented with a geologist at the bottom of a mineshaft next to a box suspended from a vertical rope. The geologist sent signals to his colleague at the top by initiating a wave pulse at the bottom of the rope that would travel to the top of the rope. The mass of...

Suppose a ocean wave encountered a section of ocean which had a higher level of aeration from gas such as methane escaping from the seafloor. Due to the aerated sections apparent lower density would the wave travel slower through the aerated section than its propagation speed thru pure seawater ?

If electrons are waves, what causes them to change direction and move up and down?

The corona is much hotter than the surface of the Sun, contrary what you would naively expect from the heat flow. While plasma waves were long suspected as cause, the mechanism was not well understood. How are these waves produced, and how is their energy converted to heat? Scientists now...

How fast are the de Broglie pilot waves? Do they move at the particle group or phase velocity? Is the phase velocity really faster than c as it weaves around the particle?

Hi. I am using r and t to denote the amplitude reflection and transmission coefficients and R and T to denote the power reflection and transmission coefficients. 1. If r = -1 this is total reflection which leads to standing waves. But if the reflected wave has an equal but opposite amplitude why...

My textbook (Serway and Jewett, Physics for Scientists and Engineers) says that Emax/Bmax = E/B = c. And that E and B are in phase. My question is, if they are in phase, they both reach zero at the same time. At that point, E/B = 0/0 and not c. I know I am missing something, but not sure what...

Suppose that an aircfract somehow is not moving. Then I would expect the sound waves it produces to spread out uniformely in a spherical fashion. Now imagine a airplane traveling at approximately the speed of sound. In this case, if the airplane produces a wave at point A and after a time T the...

I calculated the energy density of capillary waves with Debye method (pretty much Debye model in 2D), and I assumed there is a frequency cutoff for capillary waves as well. However, when I checked my work with solution I was quite surprised that the solution suggests there is no such a cuttoff...

as we know light travel in vacuum because of oscillation of electric and magnetic field and both are perpendicular to each other. But i don understand how these electric and magnetic fields get generated in vacuum. as electric filed can vary by oscillating charge and that generate varying...

Hi all, would appreciate a spot of help on this problem which originally comes from Feynman's introductory physics course. 1. Homework Statement 'A spar buoy of uniform cross-section floats in a vertical position with a length L submerged when there are no waves on the ocean. What is the...

I am a bit confused about the energy density in an EM wave. why do we take the Peak value of E vector while calculating the energy density? Like if the E field is ##E_0 Sin(kx-wt)## what is the energy density of the EM wave(Magnetic + Electric)? is it A) ##\frac {e_0E_0^2}{2} ## or B) ##...

Before reading Bloch theorem i read something to get a feeling to what happens to the energy of electron in a periodic potential, in short what i read said: Assuming we have a weak periodic potential from -π/a to π/a for example cos(2πx/a), we can write the electron wave function as: α|k>+β|k'>...

Homework Statement A cell phone sends and receives electromagnetic waves in the microwave frequency range. a) Explain the physics of how an oscillator creates these waves. b) Research the possible side effects of using cell phones. citing at least three websites that you consider reliable...

Hi at all, I've the following question: How the fondamental particles (electrons, protons) are seen as matter waves, what shape and size should be these waves? They are wave-packets?

Homework Statement Two loudspeakers are placed 3.00 m apart horizontally.They emit 425 Hz sounds, in phase. A microphone is placed d= 3.20 mid distant from a point midway between the two speakers, where an intensity maximum is recorded. (a) How far must the microphone be moved to the right to...

Homework Statement Show that any plane wave can be written as the sum of a left-circularly polarized wave and a right-circularly polarized wave of suitable amplitudes and phase Homework EquationsThe Attempt at a Solution If I assume the plane wave polarizes in the z direction. It is possible...

Homework Statement Imagine that you are conducting an activity with a laser to create an interference pattern. Use the appropriate equations to predict two ways (other than the way described in the following example) to change the interference pattern in order to have closer fringes. Explain...

I looked up and read the definitions in several different books, but still don't get it. Is someone willing to explain it to me on a really simple level?

Homework Statement A wave is traveling to the right shown in the first picture. Which wave traveling to the left will momentarily cancel out the original wave moving to the right? Homework Equations There are no equations, this problem is visual The Attempt at a Solution It seems the...

Hello, I am reading a book on the history of the universe. The book says that we can still detect the electromagnetic waves generated at the big bang in the form of white noise. I am not sure how it works, because the waves transmitted by AM or FM radio antennas die down after propagating some...

From what I understand the LIGO experiments were the first in the road to demonstrating the existence of gravitational waves. There was a dicussion about this on Utube where someone pointed out that the polarized light scattered from dust, being much larger, could mask the the effect of...

Hello, The guitar is a stringed instrument with six strings of equal length but different linear mass density. Fretting is about shortening the length of a string which causes the fundamental mode and higher modes to have higher resonant frequencies. When a guitar string is plucked (by hand...

So again, I’ve got this analytical question on my mind and it’s been bugging me for a couple weeks now. So my question is, how do sound waves work? I’m talking about if you put two radios facing each other playing different songs. What would happen? Is it if waves match then they just combine...

I am studying about the cavity radiation inside a metallic cube. In the textbook it states that there are two independent waves corresponding to the two possible states of polarization of electromagnetic waves. What does it mean by this? (My current assumption is the phase change of the waves)...

Homework Statement Choose a technology such as MP3 players, laser, medical imaging, or another that interests you (Other than the cell phone). Research the internet and find out how it is related to the physics of light and waves. In approximately 100-150 words, write a paragraph explaining the...

Homework Statement Four identical wave sources (s1,s2, s3,s4 ) are located at the corners of a square. We know the phase at three sources: 0 at s1, π/4 at s2, π/2 at s3. Whet is the phase we have to give to s4 in order to have a maximun of intensity at the center of the square? Homework...

Homework Statement In a kidney study, ultrasound was used with frequency 3.5 MHz. In normal body tissue, the speed of the ultrasound is 1.50 km / s, while the speed in the kidney tissue is 1.55 km / s. Reflected signals came as follows: after 20 microseconds from the skin, after 75 microseconds...