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Wave Interference
Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser! Add a second source or a pair of slits to create an interference pattern.
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Teaching Resources
Main Topics
- Waves
- Sound
Sample Learning Goals
- You can watch water, sound, and light waves move and see how they are related. All can be represented by a sinewave.
- What does this sinewave represent for these three different phenomena?
- Use multiple sources with different spacing and see a changing interference pattern.
- Find points of constructive and destructive interference by eye, and by using the detectors.
- Put up a barrier to see how the waves move through one or two slits. What sort of pattern do the slits create? How can you change this pattern?
- In the light panel, predict the locations of the fringes that appear on the screen using d sin(θ) = mλ. Use the tape measure to verify your predictions.
Teaching Ideas
| Title | Authors | Level | Type | Updated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Wave Interference (PreAP)
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Elyse Zimmer | HS | Lab | 7/21/14 |
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Wave Interference with Water Waves (AP)
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Elyse Zimmer | HS | Lab | 7/21/14 |
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Light Behaves Like a Wave (sometimes...)
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Nathan Quarderer | HS UG-Intro |
Lab | 12/2/13 |
Invention Lab_Wave Interference
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Noah Podolefsky | HS UG-Intro |
Lab | 6/8/09 |
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Water Waves in an Electric Sink
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Dean Baird, Paul G. Hewitt | HS | Lab | 10/19/14 |
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Concept questions for Physics using PhET (Inquiry Based)
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Trish Loeblein | HS UG-Intro |
CQs | 7/7/13 |
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Wave unit (Inquiry Based)
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Trish Loeblein | UG-Intro HS |
CQs Demo Lab |
7/9/13 |
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Wave clicker questions (Inquiry Based)
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Trish Loeblein | UG-Intro HS |
CQs | 7/9/13 |
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Wave demonstrations: water, sound, light (Inquiry Based)
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Trish Loeblein | HS UG-Intro |
CQs Demo |
7/7/13 |
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Probability and Randomness Interactive Lecture
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Sam McKagan, Kathy Perkins, Carl Wieman, and Noah Finkelstein | UG-Adv UG-Intro |
CQs Demo |
1/9/11 |
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PhET Sims Aligned to the Chemistry Curriculum
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Julia Chamberlain | UG-Intro HS |
Other | 7/15/14 |
| The Fringe of Optics | Dean Baird, Paul G. Hewitt | UG-Intro HS |
Lab | 5/30/11 |
| Demonstrating the principle of phase plugs used in loudspeakers by Wave Interference | Csaba Horvath | Other | Demo | 2/7/10 |
| Oscilatory Motion | Mohamed AbdelWahab | UG-Intro | Other | 11/25/09 |
| Applications of Parametric Equations | Andrzej Sokolowski | MS UG-Intro |
HW | 5/27/09 |
| CD's, DVD's & Optical Commmunication: Binary Coding and Diffraction Errors | Debra Krause Dandaneau | HS UG-Intro |
Other Lab |
4/17/09 |
| Diffracton PhET Lab for AP physics B | Chris Bires | UG-Intro HS |
Lab | 8/4/10 |
| Lab. Waves | Marsha Harden | HS | Lab | 5/8/08 |
| Ripple While You Work | David Moutoux | HS | HW Lab |
5/5/08 |
| Light and Sound Wave Properties | Kristi Goodwin | MS | Lab | 3/17/08 |
| Wavey Simulation | Gretchen Swanson | HS | Lab | 9/18/07 |
| Diffraction | Stephan Graham | HS | Lab | 4/25/07 |
| Wave Interference in 2D | Karen King, Cory Hofschild | HS | Lab | 1/5/09 |
| Virtual Ripple Tank | Craig Young | HS | Lab | 10/16/10 |
| Laboratório Virtual: Experimento da Cuba de Ondas | Ana Paula Santos Pereira, Patrese Coelho | MS | Lab | 5/16/13 |
You can submit your own ideas and activities.
Translated Versions:
Software Requirements
| Windows | Macintosh | Linux |
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Microsoft Windows XP/Vista/7 Sun Java 1.5.0_15 or later
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OS 10.5 or later Sun Java 1.5.0_19 or later
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Sun Java 1.5.0_15 or later
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Credits
| Design Team | Third-party Libraries | Thanks To |
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