Basic Wave Terms
Waves which encounter a boundry can be modeled in these two different ways.
What are wavefronts and rays?
When encountering a new medium, a wave changes speed and direction.
What is refraction?
Snell's Law applies to this type of wave behavior.
What is refraction?
When two or more waves overlap.
What is superposition?
The spreading out of waves as they pass through an opening or around an obstacle.
What is diffraction?
What is transmission?
At a medium, part of the wave bounces off.
What is reflection?
What is the normal line?
The peaks of two small ocean waves collide to produce one very large wave peak.
What is constructive interference?
A very small opening around which light rays bend or spread.
What is a slit?
When two material meet, causing waves to change.
What is a boundry?
When a wave is reflected, the outgoing (reflected) angle is determined by this.
What is the angle of incidence?
What is wave speed?
Noise-canceling headphones use this principle.
What is destructive interference?
A key property of light that is strongly affected by diffraction.
What is wavelength?
These three terms describe all possibilities for how waves behave when encountering a change in material.
What are reflection, refraction, and transmission?
A unitless number describing the amount light bends when entering or leaving a medium.
What is refractive index?
In the most common version of Snell's Law formula, the ratio of the index of refaction is equal to this
What is the ratio of the sines of the angles?
Wave interference causes a change in this property of the wave.
What is amplitude?
What is a diffraction grating?
In order to best observe wave behavior, we need a special type of light; it has a single wavelength.
What is a coherent source?
When a refracted ray exceeds this, light is trapped entirely inside the medium, and only reflects.
What is the critical angle?
What is total internal reflection?
Interference from multiple waves is the cause of these, which come in light and dark flavors
What are fringes?
This key historical experiment demonastrated the wave nature of light by using diffraction to create bands of light on a wall.
What is Young's Double-Slit experiment?