Basics
the maximum extent of a vibration or oscillation, measured from the position of equilibrium.
What is amplitude?
An oscillation of matter that transfers energy through a medium.
What is a mechanical wave?
Wavelengths from the nominal red edge of the visible spectrum around 700 nanometers to 1 millimeter. Uses include thermal efficiency analysis, environmental monitoring, industrial facility inspections, detection of grow-ops, remote temperature sensing, short-range wireless communication, cooking, spectroscopy, and weather forecasting.
What is infrared radiation?
An Earth science concerned with the solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time.
What is geology?
a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities.
What is a wave?
A perceptual property of sounds that allows their ordering on a frequency-related scale.
What is pitch?
Visible light color with the highest amount of energy.
What is violet?
a chemical substance composed of many identical molecules (or molecular entities) composed of atoms from more than one element held together by chemical bonds.
What is a compound?
A pair of superimposed periodic waves traveling in opposite directions. The amplitude of vibration has nulls at some positions where the wave amplitude appears smaller or even zero.
What is a standing wave?
the reduction of an item's density, the opposite of compression
What is rarefaction?
A form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter. They are widely used in modern technology, for example in point-to-point communication links, wireless networks, radar, satellite and spacecraft communication, medical diathermy and cancer treatment, remote sensing, astronomy, particle accelerators, spectroscopy, industrial heating, collision avoidance systems, garage door openers and keyless entry systems, and for cooking food.
What is microwave radiation?
A moving wave that consists of oscillations occurring perpendicular (or right angled) to the direction of energy transfer.
What is a transverse wave?
A condition that is not limited to a specific set of values but can vary, without steps, across a continuum.
What is a spectrum?
an oscillation of the parts of a fluid or an elastic solid whose equilibrium has been disturbed, or of an electromagnetic wave.
What is a vibration?
A mechanical wave that propagates along the interface between differing media, usually as a gravity wave between two fluids with different densities.
What is a surface wave?
An elementary particle that is a boson and is the quantum of the electromagnetic field and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. They are massless, so they always move at the speed of light in vacuum.
What is a photon?
The change in frequency of a wave in relation to an observer who is moving relative to the wave source.
What is the doppler effect?