Skip to Content Go to sign in Skip to Primary Navigation Skip to Secondary Navigation Skip to Page Navigation Skip to Header Navigation Skip to Footer Navigation Read more about accessability options and our navigation

Physics Classroom is making strides to make our site accessible to everyone. Our site contains 6 navigation areas. The Primary, Secondary, and Page Level navigations have a screen reader version of their nav structure that allows using the left and right keys to navigate sibling navigation items, and up or down keys to navigate parent or child navigation items. The others can be navigated using tabs. The Primary Navigation handles the first 2 levels of site pages. The Secondary (which is not always available) handles the 3rd and 4th level of structure. The Page level navigation allows you to navigate the current page's headings quickly. The Header Navigation contains the Light/Dark Mode toggle, Search, Notifications and account login. The Breadcrumb Navigation contains the breadcrumb of the current page. If the current page has a breadcrumb, you can get to it by skipping to the content and tabbing in reverse (shift plus tab). The Footer Navigation contains links such as Privacy, Contact, about and terms. Some resources contain an Audio Player that can be activated by holding down the T key for 3 seconds, and then using K to pause and resume. While not every area of Physics Classroom is usable purely from keyboard and screen reader, we are committed to continue work on making this possible. If you have questions or need additional help, please use this link to contact us.

Return to screen reader navigation
Home Minds On Sounds Waves Mission SM5 Resonance and Standing Wave Patterns Help Help 3

Mission SM5 Resonance and Standing Wave Patterns

The Question

A guitar string has a set of natural frequencies at which they naturally resonate at. The following numbers represent sets of frequencies. Which would be a set of typical natural frequencies for a guitar string?

Physics Rules

Natural Frequencies and Harmonics:
Every object has a natural frequency or a set of natural frequencies at which it tends to vibrate at. When struck, plucked, strummed or somehow disturbed, the object will vibrate at one of the natural frequencies in its set of natural frequencies. These individual frequency values are often referred to as the harmonic frequencies of the string or air column. The lowest harmonic frequency is referred to as the fundamental frequency. The other frequency values in the set of natural frequencies are whole number multiples of the fundamental frequency value.

Hot Link