Chapter 4

Wave Behavior at Boundaries,

Refraction, Interference, and
Diffraction
 Refraction
A light ray traveling through a transparent
medium (air) that encounters a boundary
of another transparent medium (prism) will
bend at the boundary. This bending at the
boundary.
Snell's law

Incident light wave Refracted Wave

Glass Prism
Refraction of Sound Waves
Warm air –
sound travels
farther
Day
Temperature
changes with
altitude
Cold air - sound travels slower

Cold air –
sound travels
slower
Night
Warm air - sound travels farther
 Interference
• Constructive interference: the amplitude of the resultant wave is
larger than that of the individual waves.
• Destructive interference: the amplitude of the resultant wave is less
than that of the individual waves.

(in phase)

(180° out of phase)

 Constructive and Destructive Algebraic
Addition

 

Constructive Partially Constructive

(in phase) (somewhat out of phase)

 

Destructive Non-coherent signals

(180° out of phase) (noise)
 Wave behavior: Interference
• Interference fringes are a series of bright and dark bands
• Sometimes straight, sometimes circular, sometimes more
complicated
• Fringes are the bright a dark spots
• Bright spots occurs when:

• Dark spots occurs when:

Wave Behavior: Diffraction
 Beats: Another example of
Interference
Beat – an interference of two sounds of slightly different frequencies
what we hear are periodic variations in volume.

Phet.colorado.edu/
 Diffraction
The apparent bending of wave around small obstacles and the spreading
out of waves past small openings.
W

W wavelength of the wave

D diameter of the opening

W > D → much diffraction

 Diffraction
W

W < D → very little diffraction

 Ripple Tank Demo

• Light diffracting
through 2 slits
produces
fringes on a
screen
• Bright fringes
are areas of
constructive
interference
• Dark fringes are
areas of
destructive
interference
 Examples of Diffraction
Storm. Thunder
Lightering nearly = thunder with a sharp crack
Lightering far = low rumble of thunder

Noise source

Barrier
More diffraction
examples …..
It occurs with any type of wave,
including sound waves, water waves,
electromagnetic waves such as visible
light and radio waves, and even
particles.
1. CD or DVD act as a diffraction grating
to form the familiar rainbow pattern seen
when looking at a disk.
2. The hologram on a credit card

W (speech) = 1 meter

D (mouth) = few centimeters