Blog Post 5: Wave Interference Simulation Activities

1. Measure the wavelength of two drops of different amplitude.

High amplitude-1.70cm

Low amplitude-1.73cm

2. Measure the wavelength of two drops with different frequency.

Low frequency-3.66cm

High frequency-1.06cm

3. Explian your results.

It seems that the amplitude has very little to do with the wavelength. The frequency is directly proportional to the size of the wavelength though. Low frequency resulted in a very large wavelength while high frequency has a very small wavelength.

The amplitude, by definition has nothing to do with wavelength.

4 Introduce a second faucet for the next set of questions.

-measure the wavelength of the drips

The wavelength of the drips was 2cm

-measure distances from each drip to the 6 constructive interference points and report those values in cm

I gave my points letters based on no reason.

The graph made looks like:

1

                    P

      B

             E           A

      C

                    F

2

(Distances in cm)       B       C       E       P        F       A

Distance from 1       2.00    3.77     3.75   5.89     5.30    5.36 

Distance from 2       3.85    2.08     3.73   5.73     3.74    5.40

We see points of constructive interference at roughly multiples of the wavelength. At B the wave from one only has to travel one wavelength before it meets the trough from the wave from faucet 2 that traveled 2 wavelengths.

The points of destructive interference occur at points where a wave that travelled 1+x wavelength passes a wave that has travelled 1/2+x wavelenth. This means that a trough of one passes across a crest of another.