State the principle of superposition of waves and illustrate it schematically.

Whenever two or more waves travelling through the same medium at the same time pass through each other, the net displacement of the medium at any point in space-time is simply given by the sum of the individual wave displacements.An easy way to illustrate this schematically would be by sketching both constructive and destructive cases using sine and cosine waves. More complicated waveforms could them be later also considered (square, triangular, etc...).

PV

Related Physics A Level answers

All answers ▸

why is gravitational potential negative?


Can you jump a motorcycle into space?


An unknown capacitor is charged to 6v, its maximum value, then discharged through a 1k ohm resistor. If the capacitor voltage is 3v, 0.3 seconds after starting to discharge, what is the capacitance of the unknown capacitor?


Why is an object moving in a circle at a constant speed said to be accelerating?