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5.1: Wave Speed

  • Page ID
    26018
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    There are two different speeds involved with describing a wave. In previous chapters we saw that the individual points on a wave oscillate (up and down for transverse waves, back and forth for longitudinal waves) with simple harmonic motion, just like masses on springs. But the up and down speed of a point on a transverse wave doesn't tell us how fast the wave moves from one place to the next. The wave speed, v, is how fast the wave travels and is determined by the properties of the medium.


    This page titled 5.1: Wave Speed is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Kyle Forinash and Wolfgang Christian via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform; a detailed edit history is available upon request.