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Home Concept Builders Vibrations and Waves Wavelength Help Help 6

Wavelength - Questions 6 Help

A wave is a regular and repeating vibration of a medium. For instance, a wave in a rope causes the rope to vibrate over and over again in such a manner that the familiar sine-wave pattern appears. The wavelength of a wave is the length of the repeating pattern.

There are three similar versions of this question. Here is one of those versions:
 

Version 1:

Determine the number of waves displayed in the transverse wave pattern shown below.

If you inspect any wave pattern, you will notice that there is a repeating unit that occurs over and over again along the length of the pattern. This repeating unit is known as a wave. The repeating unit includes a region with a crest and a second region with a trough. In this question, you must count the number of repeating units or waves.

Perhaps the easiest way to approach the task of counting waves is to know what a half-wave looks like. A complete wave consists of two halves - the half with the crest and the half with the trough. The diagram at the right displays one-half of a wave - the crest part. In this question, the answer could be a whole number or a half-number of waves. So simply count the number of halves and divide the result by two. It's that easy!

Try this link to The Physics Classroom Tutorial for more help with the concept of wavelength:

The Anatomy of a Wave

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