The Physical Universe, 11/e

Konrad B. Krauskopf, Prof. Emeritus of Geochemistry,

Stanford Univ.
Arthur Beiser
ISBN: 0072418265
Copyright year: 2004

Chapter 1
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WAVES
 This section of material gives you a BRIEF
overview of some of THE most important
concepts in physics
WAVES
WAVE MOTION
WAVE INTERACTION

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Where to begin??
 We know that at the atomic level, everything is in
motion
 We know that in solids, atoms oscillate back and
forth around some fixed point in space

From this, we can define a new concept:

VIBRATION
“a wiggle in time”
anything that moves back and forth, so that
the AVERAGE position does not change 6-3
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when things vibrate...

The “news” of this vibration can travel from the place
where the vibration happens to other places--this
news travels on

WAVES
“wiggles in time and space”
The place where the vibration happens is called
the source
Waves can be very simple or very complex—
Of course, we start with the SIMPLE
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Simple vibration example

PENDULUM
 this simple physical model serves as a way for
scientists to study
SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION
 The pendulum swings to and fro
 Each swing occurs in a given amount of time
 this is a REGULAR or PERIODIC motion

And now for some language...

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Language primer
words to describe vibrations and waves:
 frequency (f): how often the vibration occurs
UNITS≡ 1/second = Hz (“Hertz”)
 period (T): the time taken for one full vibration
UNITS ≡ second
 wavelength (λ): length of one complete wave
UNIT ≡m or cm
 amplitude (A): how “big” is the wave
UNIT ≡ m or cm
 wave speed (v): how fast the “news of the
vibration” travels
UNIT ≡ m/s (like we have already learned)
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Important relationships
 Period is inversely proportional to frequency
T=1/f
f=1/T
 wave speed is the product of frequency and
wavelength

v = f x λ (m/s)

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SIN waves (pronounced “sign” waves)

 What does a wave have to do with a trigonometric
function?
 Imagine replacing the string on the pendulum with a spring
 now the mass bobs up and down
 now imagine attaching a piece of chalk to the mass and
walking along a black board
 AMAZINGLY, the shape drawn by the oscillating
mass is
a sin wave

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The sin wave

 Wavelengths fora Sound:
The sin wave is from 1 to 20ofm
good representation
Wavelengths for motion
simple harmonic visible Light:
From about 450x10-9 to 630 x 10-9 m
wavelength

For Sound: amplitude tells

about how LOUD the sound is
amplitude
For Light: amplitude tells
about Brightness
In both cases amplitude is
related to INTENSITY 6-9
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Now back to the pendulum

 PERIOD of the pendulum does not depend
on the mass -- only on the length of the
string
 Each swing (back and forth) takes the same

amount of time
 the motion of the pendulum is called

SIMPLE HARMONIC MOTION

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Light and Sound both travel in WAVES

 BUT, light and sound are DIFFERENT
Sound Waves
• must have a medium in order to propagate (travel)
• LONGITUDINAL WAVE

LIGHT Waves
• Do not require a medium (can travel in vacuum)
• TRANSVERSE WAVE

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WHAT’S THE DIFFERENCE?

 Transverse Wave

WAVE ON A STRING
particles in the medium oscillate in a direction
PERPENDICULAR
to the direction of wave propagation
example: wave on a string, all electromagnetic waves
 Longitudinal Wave
SOUND WAVE
particles in the medium oscillate in a direction
PARALLEL
to the direction of wave propagation
example: SOUND WAVE, wave on the slinky

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TRANSVERS VS. LONGITUDINAL

 TRANSVERSE WAVE
 Individual particles oscillate

PERPENDICULAR to the direction of wave

motion
 Do not require a medium (can travel in

vacuum)
 example: light, WAVE ON A STRING

 LONGITUDINAL WAVE
 Individual particles oscillate PARALLEL to the

direction of wave motion

 Example: Sound Waves

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Standing Waves
 Send a single wave down a stretched rope
 If the rope is fixed at the opposite end, the wave will be
reflected back along the rope, creating a second wave
traveling in the opposite direction
 The two traveling waves can interfere in such a
way so that the amplitude of the wave is cancelled
at certain points.

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Standing waves
 These waves produce the familiar vibrations that
make the sounds of musical instruments

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Standing waves on a string

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Resonance
Whenever an object is subjected to a force
with a frequency equal to the
NATURAL FREQUENCY
of the object
Example: pushing a swing: if you push with just the right
frequency, the AMPLITUDE grows

Resonant excitation causes

INCREASED wave amplitude
in sound waves and other kinds of waves
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Sound in AIR
 Characterized by changes in the
PRESSURE of the air
 These pressure regions are called
COMPRESSIONS
where the molecules of air are closer
together than before the wave
RAREFACTIONS
where the molecules of air are further
apart than before the wave
 pressure measured relative to normal air pressure
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SOUND waves
 Sound, like every other wave, is produced by some
VIBRATION
 like a voice, or an instrument,...
 Sound waves must have some MEDIUM in order to
propagate
 no sound on the moon...

 Sound waves are LONGITUDINAL waves; this means

that the particles in the medium oscillate in the same
direction as the motion of the wave
We will focus on sound waves in AIR...
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Visual Aid...
 Consider a tube filled with gas (like regular air)

• If you could see the air molecules, they would be uniformly

spaced (on average)
• This means that the pressure is uniform throughout the tube

6-20
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Visual Aid...
 Now consider DISTURB ING the air in the tube

• that is the effect of a sound wave at one end of the

tube, a bell ringing, for example
• this causes a sound wave to begin moving through the
air in the tube

6-21
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Visual Aid...
 The disturbance travels down the tube

• the wave moves by making the air molecules oscillate back and
forth
These molecules bump into the molecules further into the
tube, and so on...

Air molecules OSCILLATE back and forth...

6-22
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Sound waves…LONGITUDINAL
 Direction of wave motion, and oscillation
WAVES
Direction of wave propagation

Direction of molecule oscillation

Molecules oscillate parallel to

direction of wave motion
 What about the air pressure?
•The compressed regions (dark stripes) : HIGHER pressure
•The rarefied regions (light stripes) : LOWER pressure
 How is this like a SIN wave?
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High Pressure corresponds to Compressions--

PEAKS in the SIN wave

Low Pressure correspond to Rarefactions--

VALLEYS in the SIN wave

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DO YOU HEAR WHAT I HEAR….

 The sound we hear depends on the

FREQUENCY
of the pressure waves hitting our ears

 Even though the SPEED of the wave is the

same, the DISTANCE BETWEEN
WAVEFRONTS changes for different
sounds

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“HIGH” Sound-->HIGH FREQUENCY

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“LOW” Sound-->LOW FREQUENCY

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Speed of sound
 : How fast the wave moves down the tube (or across the room…)
 The sound wave speed depends of the
condition of the air
at 0°C, 330 meters per second
at 20°C (room temperature), 340 meters per second
• This is about ONE MILLION times slower than the
speed of light (c = 3 x 108 m/s)
• This speed converts to
1090 ft/s
≈ 743 miles per hour
ALL SOUNDS TRAVEL AT THE SAME SPEEDS
IN THE SAME MEDIUM
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The Speed of Sound

 The speed of sound varies according to the
medium in which it is traveling
 In general,

 in those materials where the molecules are

closer together, sound travels FASTER
 EXAMPLE: WATER
 in those materials where the molecules are
moving faster, sound travels faster
 Speed of sound (in air) is affected by
 Changes in temperature
6-29
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More on sound intensity

 What isLoudest
the decibelrock
(“dB”)concert
scale about?
The Whearocan(1976)
Threshold of human hearing (the FAINTEST


sound that a human detect)

sound level
0 on theat a distance
decibel scale (aboutof 46m
10-12 W/m2)from
 Threshold of PAIN (the loudest sound that is
the front speaker
tolerable by the human ear)
was 120dB!!
120 on the decibel scale (about 1W/m2)
• A jet plane makes a sound with an intensity
of about 140dB at a distance of 30 m
• A whisper has an intensity of about 20dB
6-30
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Another interesting wave property…

 This is when the frequency at the position of

the observer seems different than the
frequency produced by the source
 Happens when either the source or the

observer is IN MOTION…
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DOPPLER Effect for SOUND WAVES

 When an observer hears a different
frequency than that produced by the source
 Happens anytime the distance between the
source and observer is changing rapidly
EXAMPLES:
police car siren coming toward you….
train whistle traveling away from you...

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How does it happen

 When a SOURCE is moving TOWARD you,
the wave fronts get “squished” together—
causing them to hit your ear MORE
FREQUENTLY -HIGHER
FREQUENCY
 When a SOURCE is moving AWAY from

you, the wave fronts get “spaced out” —

causing them to hit your ear LESS
FREQUENTLY -LOWER FREQUENCY

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Music to my ears
Is it music, or is it noise?


Music is composed of sounds stemming from

REGULAR (periodic) VIBRATIONS

 MOST sounds are NOISE!--composed of a

series of IRREGULAR vibrations

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Characterizing Musical Sounds

 Pitch
 most sounds have MANY FREQUENCIES
 PITCH refers to the lowest frequency component
 Quality (timbre)
 tells about the “recipe” of frequencies produced by a
specific source
 why we can hear the difference between a piano and a
guitar, even when they play the same PITCH
 Intensity (Loudness)
 the AMPLITUDE of the pressure waves of the sound
 human ear is able to hear an enormous range of
intensities
 measured on the DECIBEL scale
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Music: A Vibrating string

 The tone produced by the vibrating string in (a) is
called theFUNDAMENTAL
 The higher order vibrations are called overtones

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Musical Sound
 The combination of fundamental plus several
overtones make each musical instrument have
a unique quality, or timbre
 Each instrument will RESONATE at particular

frequencies

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A very important class of waves…

 Or “Electromagnetic radiation”
 A direct result of the interaction and

connection between the electric field of

charges and the magnetic fields produced
when they

MOVE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 6-38
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It’s all about WAVES

 Something oscillates, causing a wave
 When electrons “oscillate”,
 a time changing electric field is
produced,
 which means a magnetic field is

produced.
 The result is a

traveling electromagnetic wave

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Traveling Electromagnetic wave

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Electromagnetic Wave Speed

 Is the speed of ALL electromagnetic waves

 Is a direct result of the conservation of
energy….long physics derivation
 Is constant

c ≈ 3 x 108 m/s
≈ 186,000 miles per SECOND
(in a vacuum)
It’s the same for blue light, red light, radio waves, microwaves, x-
rays, gamma rays,...

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Group Question
 How long does it take for the light produced by a
lightning flash to reach your eyes if the lightning flash
occurs 12 miles (ABOUT 19000 meters) away from you?

USE: speed of light = 3 x 108 m/s

(Remember: distance = rate x time, so time = distance / rate)

time = distance (m) ÷ rate (speed in m/s)

= 19000 m ÷ (3 x 108) m/s
= 6.3 x 10-5 seconds = 0.000063 seconds

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So what does this mean?

 Are you OLDER or YOUNGER than the image you
see when you look into the mirror??

OLDER!!
It took time for the light from your real face
to travel to the mirror…
It took time for the light to travel from the
mirror to your face…
So, the image you see is of the
“YOUNGER” you--it is how you looked
prior to right now...
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EM Waves carry information

 By purposefully making modulations in
either the amplitude or frequency of a
traveling electromagnetic wave
 information can be encoded in the wave
 This information can b e transported from one
place (the transmitter) to a distance place (the
receiver)

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Modulation types
 Variation in the ‘strength’ of the wave:
AMPLITUDE MODULATION
 Variation in the frequency of the wave:

FREQUENCY MODULATION

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And now
 Take a close look at

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Visible light
 The light that humans can detect is only a
small part of the spectrum
 We humans can only see very few of the
possible electromagnetic waves
 The possible electromagnetic wave energies
are described by

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All of the possible energies of electromagnetic

radiation are arranged in order of
increasing energy (decreasing wavelength)

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The Electromagnetic Spectrum

6-49
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What we know about Light so far

 Light (that is, what we see) is only a very small part of the
Electromagnetic (EM) SPECTRUM
 about 0.1%
 The entire spectrum of EM waves goes from
 Gamma Rays
(high energy-short wavelength-high frequency)
to

 Radio Waves
(low energy-long wavelength-low frequency)

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The Ray approximation

 We can describe the behavior of light waves by
using a simple model
 We know that light travels in straight lines until it
encounters some obstacle
 Light can be bent from its straight path by:
 refraction
 Reflection

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Light Interacting with a Material

 When light is incident upon a
material, three things can happen

 The light can be reflected

 The light can be transmitted through the
material
 The light can be absorbed by the
material

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Light interacting with a material

INCIDENT RAY

TRANSMITTED RAY
REFLECTED RAY

i r)
a
k e
(li
i um
e d
t m
en Different material
c id (like glass)
In 6-53