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<p style="text-align: center;">Coach Fischer’s Physics students recently participated in a lab to</p>
<p style="text-align: center;">study the properties of waves.</p>
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Background for Students:
A wave is the motion caused by a disturbance in some medium. Particles within a wave vibrate around an equilibrium position. Changes in their vibration allow the net disturbance to travel from one location to another. The particles of the medium, however, do not travel with the wave…. Waves have many characteristics such as amplitude, frequency, and wavelength. These characteristics are common to all waves whether they be sound waves, light waves, water waves, or other kinds of waves. In general, all waves follow the same rules. Because this is so, we can investigate waves in a coiled spring to learn about waves in general. In this activity, you will use two different types of coiled springs, a slinky and a snakey, to investigate some of the properties of waves as they travel through different mediums. Each characteristic will be dealt with individually in the procedure section, and you will make and record observations about each characteristic.
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Objectives: —> Observe basic wave characteristics. —> Determine the effects that changes in medium have on the phase, speed, and frequency of waves. —> Distinguish between transverse and longitudinal waves and between wave pulses and traveling waves. —> Identify conditions which produce constructive and destructive interference.
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