Traveling Waves
Wavelength, Frequency, Speed, Equations of Motion
A traveling wave, like a water wave or sound wave, is a collection of oscillators. Each part that makes up the wave feature simply oscillates back and forth in some manner, but the wave feature itself, propagates. This feature transfers energy and allows objects to interact at a distance, e.g. talking or seeing.
Sound, Light, Waves on a String
What is light?
Energy & Intensity, Sound Intensity Level: Decibels
Waves carry energy and as the wave travels outward, that energy is spread out over a larger space. How loud a sound is depends not only on the energy put in by the source but also the distance between the source and the observer and the medium through which the sound travels.
Doppler
When an ambulance drives past you at a high speed you can hear a change in the pitch of the sound. That change in the preserved frequency is called the Doppler effect. Whenever there is relative motion between a wave source and an observer, a Doppler shift in the frequency occurs.
