An idealized ocean wave passes under a sea gull that bobs up and down in simple harmonic motion. If you feel yourself pushed in an ocean, what you feel is the energy of the wave, not a rush of water.įigure 2. The energy moves forward through the water, but the water stays in one place. In fact, the particles of water tend to stay in one location, save for moving up and down due to the energy in the wave.

Many people think that water waves push water from one direction to another. Wave velocity is sometimes also called the propagation velocity or propagation speed, because the disturbance propagates from one location to another. We define wave velocity to be the speed at which the disturbance moves. This movement of the wave is actually the disturbance moving to the right, not the water itself (or the bird would move to the right). The wave itself moves to the right in the figure. The time for one complete up and down motion is the wave’s period The wave’s frequency is as usual. It causes a sea gull to move up and down in simple harmonic motion as the wave crests and troughs (peaks and valleys) pass under the bird. The wave is an up and down disturbance of the water surface. Let us start by considering the simplified water wave in Figure 2. The simplest waves repeat themselves for several cycles and are associated with simple harmonic motion. All wave characteristics can be described by a small set of underlying principles.Ī wave is a disturbance that propagates, or moves from the place it was created. Water waves exhibit characteristics common to all waves, such as amplitude, period, frequency and energy.

Visualizing water waves is useful because there is more to it than just a mental image. Even radio waves are most easily understood using an analogy with water waves. For earthquakes, there are several types of disturbances, including disturbance of Earth’s surface and pressure disturbances under the surface. For sound waves, the disturbance is a change in air pressure, perhaps created by the oscillating cone inside a speaker. For water waves, the disturbance is in the surface of the water, perhaps created by a rock thrown into a pond or by a swimmer splashing the surface repeatedly. More precisely, a waveis a disturbance that propagates, or moves from the place it was created. What do we mean when we say something is a wave? The most intuitive and easiest wave to imagine is the familiar water wave. Waves in the ocean behave similarly to all other types of waves. Calculate the velocity of wave propagation.įigure 1.

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