Words to Know
The height of the wave from its resting point.
What is amplitude?
It is present anywhere there are moving objects, sound, light, or heat.
Where do you find energy--or--what is energy?
The bottom of a wave.
300,000 kilometers per second
What is the speed of light?
Energy of the wave passes through the medium.
The length of one wave measured from peak to peak.
What is wavelength?
These waves travel faster through water than through air because water is denser than air.
What are sound waves?
A repeating pattern with a specific wavelength, frequency, and amplitude.
What is a wave?
This phenomenon occurs when light passes through a prism, causing it to separate into different colors.
What is dispersion?
A repeating pattern of motion that transfers energy from place to place.
Wave
How many waves pass a point in 1 second?
What is frequency?
This type of wave includes radio waves, microwaves, and visible light, all of which can travel through a vacuum.
What are electromagnetic waves?
They travel in straight lines. When they hit an object, they bend in different directions.
What is a light wave?
When light hits a surface and bounces back, this process is called what?
What is reflection?
This term refers to the number of waves that pass a given point in one second and is measured in hertz (Hz).
What is frequency?
Waves hitting matter and bouncing off.
This type of wave moves the medium's particles up and down, perpendicular to the direction the wave travels, like in a rope being shaken.
What are transverse waves?
amplitude, wavelength, and frequency
What are the properties of all waves?
This term describes how light changes direction when it passes from air into water.
What is refraction?
When two waves meet and combine to form a larger wave, this process is known as what?
What is constructive interference?
The transfer of the energy of the wave to the medium it comes into contact with.
What is absorption?
This phenomenon describes how the frequency of a sound wave changes as the source moves closer or further away, often heard in passing sirens.
What is the Doppler effect?
Can be transmitted through objects and reflect off of objects.
What are sound waves?
This type of light is visible to the human eye and makes up the colors of the rainbow.
What is visible light?
The measurement used for light waves.
What is a nanometer?