Properties of Waves

Waves are occurrences in nature which transmit energy. There are two primary kinds of
waves:

1. Transverse waves: These are waves where the vibrations are perpendicular to the
direction of motion of the waves, e.g. light waves.
2. Longitudinal waves: There are waves where the vibrations are parallel to the
direction of motion of the waves, e.g. sound waves.

A wave has the following characteristics:

1. Wavelength: The distance between two consecutive crests or two consecutive

troughs. (m)
2. Amplitude: The maximum displacement from the rest position. (m)
3. Time period: The time taken to produce one complete wave. (s)
4. Frequency: The no. of waves produced per second. (Hz)

Frequency = 1 / Time period

If 50 waves are produced in 1 second, 50 Hz is the frequency.

Or, using the same example, 1 wave will be produced in (1/50) second (time period).

A wavefront is a line which joins all the crests of all the waves together.

To find the speed of a wave, we have to make use of the following equation:

Speed of wave (m/s) = frequency x wavelength

Water waves may be studied using an apparatus known as the ripple tank. The ripple
tank makes use of straight dippers to make straight waves and circular dippers to make
circular waves. When these waves travel and strike a barrier, they are reflected. The
reflection follows the law of reflection:

The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of reflection.

Moreover, the waves also bend (refract) when they travel from deep water to shallow
water or from shallow water to deep water. This happens due to the change of speed
when the waves change medium. Take the example of a car moving from a smooth road
to a sandy road. On the smooth road, the car was travelling in a straight line at a high
speed, and on entering the sandy road, its speed decreases, and so its path is longer
straight, but rather bent inwards. When the car re-enters the smooth road, its speed
increases, and thus its path becomes straight again.

The Electromagnetic Spectrum

This is a group of waves with the following common properties:

1. They are all transverse waves.

2. They can all travel through empty space (vacuum).
3. They all travel at the speed of 3 x108 m/s through vacuum.

The spectrum has the following members (from left to right):

1. Radio waves
2. Microwaves
3. Infra-red
4. Visible light (ROYGBIV)
5. Ultra-violet
6. X-rays
7. Gamma rays

The spectrum follows a certain trend:

As we go from left to right, the wavelength decreases and the frequency increases.

Higher the frequency, higher the energy. This is why gamma rays are the most energetic
while radio waves are the least energetic.

Uses of EM waves

1. Radio: Radio and television communication, telecommunication.

2. Microwaves: Radio/TV/telecommunication, ovens.
3. Infra-red: Night-vision thermal cameras/heaters.
4. Visible light: Telecommunication/Endoscopy/Photography.
5. Ultraviolet: Tanning/UV lamps.
6. X-rays: Scanning bones of the body.
7. Gamma rays: Treating cancer, sterilizing food.

Harmful effects of EM waves

1. Radio: Headaches.
2. Microwaves: Cell damage.
3. Infra-red: Skin burns.
4. Visible light: Blindness.
5. Ultraviolet: Skin cancer.
 6. X-rays: Cancer.
7. Gamma rays: Cancer.

Precautions:

1. Radio & Micro: Avoid overexposure.

2. Infra-red: Wear gloves.
3. Visible light: Wear sunglasses.
4. Ultra-violet: Sun-screen cream.
5. X-rays: Use lead screening.
6. Gamma rays: Use lead screening.

Microwaves can cook foods very quickly as they have the property of heating food from
the inside. They does so by heating the water molecules inside the food, which then
become energetic and spread the heat to all parts of the food.

X-rays are used to scan bones as they can easily penetrate the skin, but not the bone. As
a result, the bone structure shows up on the scan image.

The ozone (O3) layer above our atmosphere absorbs the harmful UV radiation from the
Sun. If the ozone layer, the UV radiation would not get absorbed and instead enter the
Earth’s atmosphere.

Gamma rays are passed on top of foods to increase their expiry date. The gamma rays
kill the bacteria, thus keeping the food free from decay and so the food is fresh.

Light Waves
As mentioned before, light is a transverse wave and that it can travel unhindered
through vacuum. Like any other wave, light can be reflected and refracted.

Light reflects off a mirror and follows the law of reflection. Moreover, the mirror image
has the following properties:

1. The image is the same size as the object.

2. The distance between the object and the mirror is equal to the distance between
the image and the mirror.
3. The image is laterally inverted (left becomes right and vice versa).
4. The image is virtual (it cannot be projected onto a screen).

Refraction of light follows the general rule of waves: light bends when it changes
medium due to its change of speed. Light travels the quickest in air, 2 nd quickest in
liquids and the slowest in solids.

When light goes from an optically less dense medium (air) to optically more dense
medium (water, glass), it slows down and thus bends towards the normal. When light
goes from an optically more dense medium, it speeds up and thus bends away from the
normal.

Moreover, while spear-fishing, refraction causes a problem in us properly pin-pointing

the location of the fish. When the light from the fish strikes the surface of the water, it
bends away from the normal. This causes us to see the fish to be higher than it actually
is. So, to properly catch the fish, we need to drive the spear lower than where we see
the fish.

This property of light is used in an application known as total internal reflection. The
stages leading to this are:

(a) When light goes from water/glass to air, if the angle of incidence at the surface of
the water/glass is less than the critical angle of the water/glass, most of the light
is refracted to the outside, along with a partially reflected ray.
 (b) If the angle of incidence is equal to the critical angle, the refracted ray goes along
the surface of the medium, and thus the angle of refraction is 90 degrees, and
there is also a partially reflected ray.
(c) If the angle of incidence is greater than the critical angle, all of the light is totally
internally reflected and no light escapes to the outside.

The conditions for total internal reflection to take place are:

1. The light has to go from an optically more dense to an optically less dense
medium.
2. The angle of incidence of light has to exceed the critical angle of the medium.

The critical angle is related to the refractive index of the medium. The refractive index
(for a medium) is the ratio between the sine of angle of incidence of light on that
medium to the sine of angle of refraction.

n = (sin i) / (sin r)

n = 1 / (sin c)

where, n = refractive index of the medium

i = angle of incidence, r = angle of refraction, c = critical angle of medium

Measuring the refractive index of glass experimentally

A glass block is placed on a piece of paper and a ray-box is used to shine light onto the
glass surface. The ray is displayed on the paper by drawing a pencil line parallel to the
ray. Once this is done, we now do the same to represent the ray leaving the glass
through the other side. Now, the ray-box and the glass block are removed and the two
lines joined to get the refracted ray (the line entering the glass was the incident ray and
the light leaving the glass was the emergent ray). A normal is now drawn on the place
where the glass surface was to get various values of angles of incidence and angle of
refraction. Those are used to plot a graph of sin i vs. sin r, and the gradient of the graph
gives the refractive index.

Total internal reflection of light is used in optical fiber communication (internet and
telephone) as well as endoscopy. This is done because data keeps on totally internally
reflecting and not getting lost by escaping to the outside. In case of a loss of data, we
can say that there is break in the optical fiber. Endoscopy is used to see the internal
organs of the body without creating any incision. Light is sent out to the organ through
an optical fiber and the reflected light comes out through another fiber and is thus used
to create the image of the organ.

Periscopes

It is a device which is used to see objects beyond a barrier, which cannot normally be
seen, by making use of two plane mirrors at 45 degrees to one another.

Moreover, some periscopes make use of total internal reflection by using prisms. Those
devices are called prismatic periscopes. Prismatic periscopes are preferred to basic
periscopes as they provide sharper images without any loss of data.
Light does not bend in the following points of the prism due to the following factors:

Point 1: The light is travelling right along the normal, making an angle of incidence of 0.

Point 2: The light strikes the medium surface at an angle greater than the medium’s
critical angle.

Prismatic/basic periscopes may be used to deviate the light by different angles, by

making use of different setups. Moreover, these are also used in car rear reflector lights,
which make use of total internal reflection to glow in the dark when the light from a car
behind it strikes the reflector.

Dispersion

This refers to the breaking down of the 7 colors of pure white light when passed through
glass/water. In air, all the 7 colors travel at the same speed. However, when going to
optically more dense media (water/glass), each of the colors has different speeds. Red
has the highest speed and thus bends the least, while violet bends the most due to
having the lowest speed.

Since the frequency of all the colors are the same (source of all the colors is the Sun),
the only thing that can cause the change in speed when changing medium is the
wavelength (since speed = frequency x wavelength). Since red has the highest
wavelength, it has the highest speed, and violet has the lowest speed due to having the
lowest wavelength.

This is what causes rainbows after rain. When the sunlight (pure white light) goes from
the air to the water (raindrops in air), the process above is followed, resulting in a
spectrum of 7 colors known as a rainbow.

Sound Waves

Sound is a longitudinal wave. It travels through the compressions and rarefactions of the
particles of the medium. Compressions happen when sound waves squeeze the particles
of the medium, while rarefactions happen when sound waves release the particle of the
medium. The distance between two consecutive compressions/rarefactions is called a
wavelength.

Sound travels the fastest in solids, second fastest in liquids and slowest in air. Sound
cannot travel through empty space, as there are no particles available for compression
or rarefaction. This is why, if we take all the air out of a jar containing an electric bell, we
can still see the bell ringing, but we won’t hear any sound.

Like light, sound can also be reflected and refracted. Reflection of sound is known as
echo, and it also follows the law of reflection. Refraction of sound happens when it
changes medium. This is observed best when two people stand on two sides of a pond.
Person A makes a noise and person B heard two noises when the sound reaches him.
This happens because one of the paths taken by the sound is straight from Person A to
Person B. The other path taken consists of the sound being refracted upwards and then
downwards towards person B. This happens because the temperature right above the
water and the temperature further up are not the same, and so the speeds of sound are
not the same on both those temperatures. As a result, the sound bends.

The speed of sound may be measured using one of the following methods:

1. Echoes: Person A stands some distance in front of a wall/solid surface and sets up
a series of claps. Person B stands right beside Person A with a stopwatch, and he
starts the stopwatch when Person A sends out the 1 st clap, and he stops the
stopwatch when he hears the last echo. If person A sends out 50 claps, that
means person B should stop the stopwatch when he hears the 50 th echo. In this
experiment, the sound travels the distance between person A and the wall twice
every time a clap is made.

Speed of sound = (50 x 2 x distance between person A and wall) / (Time taken
between 1st clap and 50th echo)

2. Gun and spark: Person A stands and fires a gun, while person B stands at a
distance away from him, e.g. 100m, with a stopwatch. Person B starts the
stopwatch when he sees the spark and he stops the stopwatch when he hears
the gunshot. The experiment is repeated several times for an accurate value of
time.

Speed of sound = (Distance between persons A and B)/ (Time Taken between spark
and gunshot)

3. Oscilloscope: A sound is fed into a microphone which is connected to an

oscilloscope. The microphone coverts the sound signals into electrical signals,
which are then displayed as transverse waveforms on the oscilloscope. The
frequency of the sound is set by the sound source itself, and is found by first
finding the time period and then finding the time period’s reciprocal. The
wavelength is also found from the waveforms, and then used in the following
equation to find the speed:

Speed of sound = frequency x wavelength

A loud sound is one which has a high amplitude, while a high-pitched sound is one which
has a high frequency. Loudness is a measure of the amplitude, while pitch is a measure
of the frequency. Male voices are usually loud, while female voices are usually high-
pitched. A loud sound may be made from a guitar by plucking the strings hard, while a
high-pitched sound may be made by stretching the strings more. It is easier to stretch
thinner strings, and that is why, thinner strings produce higher frequency than thicker
strings.

The human audible range is from 20-20,000 Hz. Below 20 Hz, we have infrasound, and
above 20,000 Hz, we have ultrasound. Elephants communicate using infrasound, while
bats and dolphins communicate using ultrasound.