PHYSICS 20

WAVES REVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Fill in the blanks:

a. Waves move at the________________ speed in the same medium and ________________ speeds in

different medium.

b. To get a slower wave in a spring, you hold the spring ________________. To get a slower wave in a

ripple tank, you ________________________________.

c. In a constant medium, if you want a wave with a longer wavelength, you would ________________

the frequency.

d. In a ripple tank, when waves pass from deep water into shallow water, the ________________

doesn’t change, but the ________________ and the ________________ both decrease.

e. There are three ways you can change the direction in which a wave is travelling, by

________________ the wave, by ________________ it, or by ________________ it.

f. When going from shallow to deep water, the waves bend ________________ the normal.

g. The troughs of two waves pass through one another. This is an example of ________________

interference.

h. Waves are passing through a slit and diffracting. You can increase the amount of diffraction by either

making the slit ________________ or by ________________ the wavelength of the wave.

i. You can make the nodal lines of an interference pattern move closer together (increase the number

of nodal lines) either by ________________ the distance between the sources or by

________________ the wavelength.

j. Waves made on a slinky by pulling the slinky from side to side are ________________ waves. Waves

made on a slinky by compressing the slinky are ________________ waves. Water waves are

considered to be ________________, sound waves are ________________ and light waves are

________________. (Answer either transverse or longitudinal).

k. A wave whose direction of motion is at right angles to the direction of particle motion is called a

________________ wave.

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l. The unit of frequency is the ________________.

m. The height of a wave is called its ________________.

n. When a crest meets a trough, the result is called ________________ interference.

o. When waves diffract around a barrier, if you make the wavelength larger, the amount of diffraction

________________ and the shadow zone gets ________________.

p. As long as waves stay in the same medium, the ________________, ________________, and

________________ remains constant, but if a wave enters a new medium, it is only the

________________ that remains the same as in the old medium.

q. In a longitudinal wave, the motion of the particles is in the ________________ direction as the

motion of the wave itself.

r. The number of waves produced each second is called the wave’s ________________.

s. A line drawn at right angles to a reflector or a boundary is called a ________________.

t. A single, isolated wave is called a ________________.

u. In a ripple tank, the direction of wave motion is always at right angles to the ________________.

v. A wave that repeats itself exactly the same way over and over is called a ________________ wave.

w. The material a wave travels through is called its ________________.

x. Within a given medium, a wave has more energy if either its ________________ or its

________________ increases.

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 YOU WILL NEED A SEPARATE PIECE OF PAPER FOR THE
REMAINDER OF THIS REVIEW ASSIGNMENT.
2. Find the frequency when:
a. A slinky is shaken 5 times in 10 seconds.
b. The wave machine is shaken 7.6 times in 2.4 seconds
c. 39 800 radio waves are produced in 7.38 ms

3. A wave has a wavelength of 6.5 X 10-2 m and a frequency of 4620 MHz. What is the speed of the wave?

4. If my microwave oven is operating at 2.67 GHz and the speed of these waves is 3.00 X 108 m/s, what is
their wavelength?

5. Some water waves have a wavelength of 4.6 cm and a frequency of 5.1 Hz.
a. What is the speed of those waves?
b. Sill in the same medium, I change the wavelength to 16.4 cm. What is the new frequency?

6. Water waves in a small tank are 6.0 cm long. They pass a given point at a rate of 4.8 waves every 2.0
seconds.
a. What is the frequency of the water waves?
b. What is the speed of these waves?
c. The waves enter another part of the tank with a different water depth and the wavelength of the
wave changes to 4.5 cm. What is the speed of the waves in the second part of the tank?

7. Sketch the appearance of these two waves at the moment they cross and again a moment later.

a.

b.

c. Which (a. or b.) is an example of constructive interference?

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8. Sketch the following situations showing the resulting waves the correct size and either upright or
inverted:
a. A spring is attached firmly to a wall. A wave travels down the spring and reflects.
b. A spring is attached to a very thin thread. A wave travels down the spring and reflects.
c. A light spring is attached to a heavy spring. A wave is made in the light spring and is partly reflected
and partly transmitted.
d. A heavy spring is attached to a light spring. A wave is made in the heavy spring and is partly reflected
and partly transmitted.

9. Draw a sketch that illustrates how the Law of Reflection holds for straight waves hitting a flat reflector at
an angle of incidence of about 30 degrees. Label your sketch completely.

10. Draw a sketch that shows waves moving from shallow water to deep water at an angle of incidence of
about 45˚. Label this sketch completely.

11. Draw two sketches that show long wavelength and short wavelength waves diffracting around a single
barrier. Label these sketches, pointing out the differences between them.

12. a. Draw a sketch showing the interference pattern formed by two point sources in a ripple tank. Label
crests and troughs, nodal lines, two different examples of constructive interference, and an example of
destructive interference.
b. How could you create an identical pattern with only one source of straight waves and some blocks?

13. A large man is standing in front of you at a parade. He is blocking your view so you cannot see, and yet
you can still hear the parade clearly.
a. Why can you hear the parade?
b. Since sound and light are both waves, it is strange that they are not behaving the same way.
Explain how this can be.

14. What is the gravity on Mercury, if a 0.500 m pendulum swings with a period of 2.30 s?

15. A pendulum swings with a period of 5.00 s on the Moon, where the gravity is 1.62 m/s2. What is the
pendulum’s length?

16. What period would a 30.0-cm pendulum have on Mars, where the gravity is 3.71 m/s2?

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