WAVES We are slowed down sound and light waves, a walking bundle of frequencies tuned into the cosmos. We are souls dressed up in sacred biochemical garments and our bodies are the instruments through which our souls play their music – Albert Einstein propagates and reaches the other end. That is, the disturbance produced at the first mass point is transmitted to the next neighbouring mass point, and so on. Notice that here, only the disturbance is transmitted, not the mass points.
Similarly, the speech we deliver is due to the vibration of our vocal chord inside the throat. This leads to the vibration of the surrounding air molecules and hence, the effect of speech (information) is transmitted from one point in space to another point in space without the medium carrying the particles. Thus, the disturbance which carries energy and momentum from one point in space to another point in space without the transfer of the medium is known as a wave. Figure .
Standing waves in a violin - - - - Unit Waves surface as shown in Figure . . We find that this disturbance spreads out (diverges out) in the form of concentric circles of ever increasing radii (ripples) and strike the boundary of the trough. This is because some of the kinetic energy of the stone is transmitted to the water molecules on the surface.
Actually the particles of the water (medium) themselves do not move outward with the disturbance. This can be observed by keeping a paper strip on the water surface. The strip moves up and down when the disturbance (wave) passes on the water surface. This shows that the water molecules only undergo vibratory motion about their mean positions.
. . Formation of waves on stretched string Let us take a long string and tie one end of the string to the wall as shown in Figure . (a).
If we give a quick jerk, a bump (like pulse) is produced in the string as shown in Figure . (b). Such a disturbance is sudden and it lasts