The Nature of Waves

For many people, the first thought concerning waves conjures up a picture of a wave moving across the surface of an ocean, lake, pond or other body of water. The waves are created by some form of a disturbance, such as a rock thrown into the water, a duck shaking its tail in the water or a boat moving through the water. The water wave has a crest and a trough and travels from one location to another.

Another picture of waves involves the movement of a slinky or similar set of coils. If a slinky is stretched out from end to end, a wave can be introduced into the slinky by either vibrating the first coil up and down vertically or back and forth horizontally. A wave will subsequently be seen traveling from one end of the slinky to the other. As the wave moves along the slinky, each individual coil is seen to move out of place and then return to its original position.

Another example is a long jump rope, the up and down  vibration of the end of the rope created a disturbance of the rope that subsequently moved towards the other end. The shape of the pattern formed in the rope was influenced by the frequency at which we vibrated it. If we vibrated the rope rapidly, then a short wave is created. However, if we vibrated the rope less frequently (not as often), a long wave would be created.