Recent content by austinv

I suppose this question really has to do with how multiple sound waves can combine into one, while that new sound wave still sounds like a collection of all the sounds that made it up. But I'm really curious, how does a microphone accurately capture multiple sounds at once? Let's say a guitar...

I consider myself very well-read on the phenomenon of thin-film interference: how it works, how it's used in lens making, etc. HOWEVER... there's one thing I don't get: Thin-film interference only occurs for one specific wavelength at any given point (according to all the sources I've read)...

Since Newton's rings are clearly a wave phenomenon, and Newton was a strong proponent of the particle theory of light, how did he explain this effect for which he is named? Thanks!

I'm studying wave interference and I have a few questions regarding it that I can't quite figure out: 1.) I was once taught that for waves to interfere, they have to be of the same frequency, but then how can beat interference occur? What are the actual requirements for interference? 2.)...

Hi and thanks for your reply! That actually makes total sense, but due to the extremely small scale of the wavelength of visible light, compared to the extent of the surface of a piece of glass for example, is it really true that the bending is occurring because the inside edge of the wave is...

I'm a very conceptual person, and I've been reading about exponential and logarithmic growth but don't fully have the kind of conceptual grasp on the two and how they differ that I'd like, so I"m curious: What is the difference between exponential growth and logarithmic growth and what causes...

I'm very curious as to what actually causes light to bend when it encounters a medium with a different refractive index. Of course the speed of light changes, and this speed change is accompanied by a corresponding wavelength change so that the frequency remains the same and there is no...

Whenever I hear or read the word "observation" in relation to quantum mechanics, I always take it to really mean "interacting," because in the quantum world, observations can only come about through an interaction. So of course it makes sense that observations change the results of the experiments.