# PHYS 170

Lecture 13 - Waves

## Introduction

### Simulation - Waves (click to hide)

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#### The Basics of Waves

Direction button: change wave direction
Longitudinal button: show/hide longitudinal wave

There are a few types of waves, the two we will study are transverse waves and longitudinal waves, both you could see in the simulation above.

• transverse waves: the motion of the particles is perpendicular to the direction of the waves
• longitudinal waves: the motion of the particles is parallel to the direction of the waves
Mechanical waves on a string being shaken is a transverse wave, sound waves is a longitudinal wave. We will mostly focus our attention to transverse waves below, although essentially all results will apply equally to longitudinal waves.

### Video - Transverse vs Longitudinal Waves (click to show)

The basic equations of waves are given below:

$$\begin{eqnarray} \text{waves traveling right: } y &=& A \sin(kx - \omega t) \\ \text{waves traveling left: } y &=& A \sin(kx + \omega t) \end{eqnarray}$$
The only difference between the two is a difference in sign. The variables are explained in the next section.

In the homework, you may see the above equations written as: $$\begin{eqnarray} \text{waves traveling right: } y &=& A \sin( \omega t -kx + \phi) \\ \text{waves traveling left: } y &=& A \sin(\omega t + kx + \phi) \end{eqnarray}$$ The addition of the constant phase $\phi$ and the reordering of $kx$ and $\omega t$ does not change the direction of the waves.

## Other Variables

Name Symbol Unit Meaning
Particle displacement $y$ $m$ displacement of a particle at position $x$ and time $t$
Amplitude $A$ $m$ maximum displacement
Angular frequency $\omega$ $rad/s$ rate of oscillation
Period $T$ $s$ time for a particle to complete one oscillation
Frequency $f$ $Hz$ number of oscillations a particle completes per second
Wave number $k$ $m^{-1}$ $k=\frac{2\pi}{\lambda}$, represents the spatial density of the waves
Wavelength $\lambda$ $m$ separation between two successive crests

Here are the equations that connect the variables together:

$$\begin{eqnarray} \omega &=& \frac{2\pi}{T} &=& 2\pi f \\ k &=& \frac{2\pi}{\lambda} \end{eqnarray}$$

## Wave Velocity and Transverse Velocity

### Wave Velocity

From the simulation above, you could see that the wave (or each crest of the wave) moves exactly one wavelength ($\lambda$) in one period ($T$), therefore the speed of the wave is given by: $$v = \frac{\lambda}{T} = f \lambda$$ where we used the fact that $\frac{1}{T} = f$.

This equation can be written more conveniently in terms of $\omega=\frac{2\pi}{T}$ and $k = \frac{2\pi}{\lambda}$: $$\begin{eqnarray} v &=& \frac{\lambda}{T} = \frac{2\pi}{T}\frac{\lambda}{2\pi} \\ &=& \frac{\frac{2\pi}{T}}{\frac{2\pi}{\lambda}}\\ &=& \frac{\omega}{k} \end{eqnarray}$$

In summary, we have for the velocity of the wave:

$$v = f \lambda = \frac{\omega}{k}$$
Just to be perfectly clear, this is the velocity at which the crests of the wave travel along the direction of the wave, not to be confused with transverse velocity below.

### Transverse Velocity

Transverse velocity is the velocity of the particles that made up the wave. For instance, in a transverse wave traveling horizontally, the transverse velocity of each particle will be vertical.

### Math Review - Differentiation of Trignometric Functions (Waves)

You need to know how to differentiate $\cos$ and $\sin$ functions to proceed further. We will start with two basic facts: $$\begin{eqnarray} \frac{d}{d\theta}\sin\theta &=& \cos \theta \\ \frac{d}{d\theta}\cos\theta &=& -\sin \theta \end{eqnarray}$$

In physics we often differentiate with respect to $t$, like so: $$\begin{eqnarray} \frac{d}{dt}\sin\omega t &=& \omega \cos \omega t \\ \frac{d}{dt}\cos\omega t &=& -\omega \sin \omega t \end{eqnarray}$$ Note that every time derivative "pulls down" a factor of $\omega$ due to the chain rule of calculus.

The last step is to include the term $kx$. Fortunately, $kx$ just comes along for the ride and do not change the results. For a wave traveling left: $$\begin{eqnarray} \frac{d}{dt}\sin(kx + \omega t) &=& \omega \cos (kx + \omega t) \\ \frac{d}{dt}\cos(kx + \omega t) &=& -\omega \sin (kx + \omega t) \end{eqnarray}$$ For a wave traveling right, simply replace $\omega \rightarrow -\omega$ in the result above: $$\begin{eqnarray} \frac{d}{dt}\sin(kx - \omega t) &=& -\omega \cos (kx + \omega t) \\ \frac{d}{dt}\cos(kx - \omega t) &=& +\omega \sin (kx + \omega t) \end{eqnarray}$$ Note that every time derivative "pulls down" a factor of $\pm \omega$ due to the chain rule of calculus.

Using the rules of calculus above, we could derive the following results:

Wave traveling right: $$\begin{eqnarray} y &=& A \sin(kx-\omega t) \\ v_y &=& \dot{y} = -A \omega \cos(kx-\omega t) \\ a_y &=& \dot{v_y} = -A \omega^2 \sin(kx-\omega t) \end{eqnarray}$$
Wave traveling left: $$\begin{eqnarray} y &=& A \sin(kx+\omega t) \\ v_y &=& \dot{y} = A \omega \cos(kx+\omega t) \\ a_y &=& \dot{v_y} = - A \omega^2 \sin(kx+\omega t) \end{eqnarray}$$

Similar to the argument we used in an example in Chapter 12, since both $\sin$ and $\cos$ functions are bounded within $-1$ and $+1$, the general rule for finding the maximum value of such functions are given by: $$\begin{eqnarray} \big( M \cos \theta \big)_{max} &=& |M| \\ \big( M \sin \theta \big)_{max} &=& |M| \end{eqnarray}$$ This gives the maximum transverse velocity and acceleration (for both directions): $$\begin{eqnarray} v_{y, max} &=& A\omega \\ a_{y, max} &=& A\omega^2 \end{eqnarray}$$

## Doppler's Effect

The apparent frequency and wavelength change if the source or the listener is moving. We will not be studying this phenomenon in details, but you could see how it works using the simulation below.

### Simulation - Doppler's Effect (click to hide)

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#### Doppler's Effect

Adjust the velocity of the source and see how it affects the wavefronts.
Gradually change the source velocity from below the speed of sound to above. Could you see any qualitative differences between the two cases?

## Notations

Name Symbol Unit Meaning
Particle displacement $y$ $m$ displacement of a particle at position $x$ and time $t$
Amplitude $A$ $m$ maximum displacement
Angular frequency $\omega$ $rad/s$ rate of oscillation
Wavenumber $k$ $m^{-1}$ $k=\frac{2\pi}{\lambda}$, represents the spatial density of the waves
Wavelength $\lambda$ $m$ separation between two successive crests
Period $T$ $s$ time for a particle to complete one oscillation
Frequency $f$ $Hz$ number of oscillations a particle completes per second
Wave velocity $v$ $m/s$ the velocity at which the crests travel along the direction of propagation of the wave
Transverse velocity $v_y$ $m/s$ the velocity at which the particles inside the wave travel
Transverse acceleration $a_y$ $m/s^2$ the acceleration of the particles inside the wave travel