Waves Definition and 1000 Threads

I am a physics teacher and I my class is currently studying sound waves. I had my class make some noise makers with straws as shown here. http://www.physics.org/interact/physics-to-go/straw-oboes/ We measured the frequencies coming from the straws and they seem to act like a pipe open at...

I needed some books for preparing for IESO selection camp and i searched net and found this link: https://www.sites.google.com/site/ineso555/reading-materials The last books on the list titled as wavesandtides is the one i am looking for. Sadly, they have only given two sample pages of the...

A comment a lab script for a recent experiment I did noted that the mechanism by which reflection of EM waves occurs is through the induction of Hertzian dipoles in a material. Having read up on Hertzian dipoles, I have found nothing which discusses them in the context of reflection. I read...

So this is going to sound ridiculous, but I want to push my curiosity to the limit. Gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light, like most things in the universe. My first question is : is this propagate slowed down by anything? The Higgs field perhaps? 2nd question ; I assume that...

What would happen if I were to fly toward a gravitational wave pulse at relativistic speed? Would I be destroyed by the Doppler-shifted pulse? Would the wave become visible?

Guys, I am studying about electromagnetic waves and I'm not able to differentiate between a photon and a em wave or I'm not understanding it. Please help me to solve it out. Thanks

I'm going to begin studying about waves and sounds. But before I start I wanted help in understanding what really a wave is, I searched on google and YouTube and what I did understand was that waves are caused by a disturbance, due to that disturbance the potential energy gets converted to...

How do waves interact, What happens when two waves with the same frequency and wave length hit each other. Would the resultant change if it was let's say an X-ray hitting an Gama-ray. That is if waves can even hit each other.

In Griffith's "Introduction to Quantum Mechanics, second edition" he states: For the delta-function potential, when considering the scattered states (with E > 0), we have the general solutions for the time-independent Schrödinger equation: $$\psi(x) = Ae^{ikx} + Be^{-ikx}~~~~\text{for }x<0$$ and...

Homework Statement A uniform rope with length L and mass m is held at one end and whirled in a horizontal circle with angular velocity You can ignore the force of gravity on the rope. (a) At a point on the rope a distance r from the end that is held, what is the tension F? Homework Equations...

1. The problem statemeent, all variables and given/known data The field electric's electromagnetic wave issued by a strut isotropic source is: \vec{E} = E_{0} r_{0}*cos(ωt − kr) \vec{θ} Find the magnetic field in spherical coordinates Homework Equations I think, i use the equation \vec{B} =...

Hi folks. I see there is a similar thread on grav waves and time, but I have a few specific questions. Everyone talks about grav waves "in space" -- even Brian Greene was saying this on Colbert, whereas Colbert was saying spacetime. I would like to make a video on how GWs are indeed "waves in...

I was told that there are two kinds gravitational waves. One dies out as 1/r, another one dies out as 1/r^2. The former is what LIGO detected, the latter is not. While I trust the professional qualification of the person very much, as a non-physics professional, I would like to a second person...

Hi people, I studying electromagnetic waves (intermediate) and I don't understand how the expression for linear momentum of a wave is obtained, if the wave doesn't carry any mass. In particular, I have to explain why the radiation pressure on a perfect absorber is half that on a perfect...

Hi guys, I'm finding it hard to conceptualise the difference between a displacement-distance and displacement-time graphs for transverse waves. Could somebody explain the difference please?

In a vacuum, the plane wave solutions to Maxwell's Equations are... E=E0*cos(wt-kr) B=B0*cos(wt-kr) ie they are in phase. (See for example https://www.physics.wisc.edu/undergrads/courses/spring08/208/Lectures/lect20.pdf http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/waves/emwv.html ) I don't...

G-Waves is a buzzword recently :) At the beginning I thought G-waves as the propagation of the changes of the curvature caused by a mass when the status of the mass (e.g. value or location) changes...But moment ago, I was told that G-waves are different from the waves that transmitting the...

I wanted to post the conjecture from this new paper which has recently been published within this past month - here's a direct link to the paper: http://arxiv.org/pdf/1602.01439v1.pdf Could an experimental apparatus consisting of oscillating masses be used to generate miniscule gravity waves...

According to the sticky bead argument, gravitational waves do carry energy. As such, are they, like photons (EM waves), subject to the gravitational pull of planetary bodies?

In order to detect gravitational waves at our present time and location, aLIGO has required a mind-boggling sensitivity, if I understand well it can detect variations in length in the order of 1/10,000 of the diameter of a proton. But space has stretched a lot during the universe's history. If...

I'm curious as to how the gravity waves were recorded given how small the amplitude of the wave was/is. Was it not below the thermal noise floor? Were noise removal techniques used, etc? Also, what kind of sampling rate/bit depth was used? Thanks

I have a couple of questions regarding the new detection of signals believed to be gravitational waves at LIGO 1. Two similar signals were detected at both facilities. Why does the Livingston signal appear to be weaker than the Hanford signal? 2. The signal in Livingston was reported to have...

Hi Everyone, my first post here. I'm really confused by the comments around the recent LIGO gravitational waves discovery and how it connects to Einsteins gravitational model. My understanding is that he said a body warped spacetime around it forming a gravitational well into which other bodies...

I'm curious if there is any relation between sound waves and gravity waves. I don't mean as an analogy. I mean can the speed of sound in matter be derived from the energy of gravity waves.

Why are electromagentic waves not visible itself but visible if they are reflected by an object ? Assuming a source of light emitting photons. This waves are not visible in the dark. If they end up on a surface of any object which "reflects" the light we start to see the object. What happens at...

Homework Statement In a region of empty space, the magnetic field is described by ##\vec{B} = B_0e^{ax}\sin{(ky-\omega t)} \hat{z}##. Find the speed of propagation ##\vec{v}## of this field. Homework Equations ##\Delta \vec{B} = \frac{1}{v^2}\frac{d^2\vec{B}}{dt^2}## , ##k=\frac{\omega }{...

In about an hour I'm heading over to a local Coffeeshop Astrophysics meeting put on by researchers and grad students at UW-Milwaukee. The topic is the gravity wave discovery. Apparently some of them contributed to the LIGO project so it will be interesting to hear what they have to say. I'll...

We know that EMW are generated by accelerating charges. If I accelerate a charge it should gain kinetic energy equal to half the mass of the charge times velocity squared. But at the same time it will radiate electromagnetic waves which carry energy itself. So where does this energy come from...

What are gravitational waves in general, not just in the weak field/linearized theory?

I'd like to ask whether the Lens-Thirring effect, which is also known as Frame-Dragging, produces any kind of Gravitational Waves which might be detectable by a detector more sensitive than LIGO. There was of course the Gravity Probe B experiment not too long ago, which saw gyroscopes launched...

Dear Friends! Q.There was no direct evidence of binary black holes till September 14,2015,when signals coming from about 1.3 billion light years away were captured by LIGO. Now my question is that how in advance we knew about the specific colliding pair.Did we theoretically predict the graph...

1. If the Michelson-Morley experiment were to be conducted with gravitational waves instead of light waves, would the results be any different? 2. Ought we to expect the existence of "gamma" gravitational waves and "radio" and "microwave," etc. gravitational waves? In principle, could there be...

I wanted to know if my reasoning is considered sound, and if not please tell me the loopholes you can observe. The energy density in an EM field is (Its not necessarily a plane wave we're talking about here). ##u= \frac{\epsilon E^2}{2}+\frac{B^2}{2\mu} ## The relationship ##E=cB## is...

So the discovery of gravitational waves observed a contraction and stretching of space-time, and I've been trying to understand how the expansion of the universe means that space itself is growing. I want to understand how this actually works in relation to 'things' like a photon and an atom...

So everyone knows that the energy of a photon is E = hf, I assume this is just because light also has a particle nature. But how do we calculate the energy of a gravitational wave, because from memory classical wave equations have a mass component to calculate 'kinetic' associated energy, and I...

Hi, So apparently electrons don't orbit the nucleus of atoms so I'm assuming the lack of movement means that no energy from the atom is radiated away from an atom due to minuscule gravitational waves, over the life of the universe. But gravitational waves have got me thinking about reference...

Electromagnetic waves are known to travel a c in a vacuum, but at lower speeds in a material medium. What about gravitational waves? They are also predicted to travel at c in a vacuum, but what about them traveling through material mediums? Do they get slowed down? by which factor? TX

Maybe a stupid question and maybe sensless to ask, but as I don't know, I ask anyway: what is the length of the newly found gravitational waves in terms of traditional EM wavelengths?

I'm learning about the speed of sound waves through a medium. The derivation is initiated through Impulse=change in linear momentum (I=Δp), then I=ΣFΔt=(Area×Δpressure×Δt) in the x direction The derivation proceeds by replacing the Δpressure with another equation we had derived earlier...

Now that we have confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, have the odds of discovering a force carrying particle changed? With my limited knowledge it kind of seems like if gravity is caused by the warping of space-time, which was confirmed by gravitational waves, would mean that there is...

The aLIGO signal is a discrete event. In addition to such events that can be resolved into individual chirps, I would think that there would be a background of gravitational waves that would look like noise, but that could be distinguished from terrestrial noise (trucks passing by, etc.) because...

A lot is being written about the recent aLIGO observations and in general the implications of GW research for our scientific understanding of the universe. We read about mostly 2 grand areas where GW research can provide novel knowledge. The astronomical / astrophysical area (i.e. mapping...

Imagine a mass that disappeared from space. I know that it is impossible, but imagine it is sucked by a wormhole or it just disapperars. Will we detect ONE gravitational wave only? Like a pulse and nothing else? Now the other way around. A mass appears from nothing. Then we will detect one...

Someone has raised an interesting discussion about how one might experience these waves closer to the merging BHs. (Let's assume we're in a heavily-shielded spaceship that will protect us from all EM radiation and other effects except gravity.) First, how big? My back of napkin calculations...

Like many others, LIGO made me curious about gravitational waves. I found the paper: Nonlocal Gravity: Damping of Linearized Gravitational Waves http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.1769 I'm having difficulty understanding. Does that mean that damping is implicit in the terms of the tensors? Does it...

How is it possible to compensate for LIGO's movement in the recent measurement of Gravitational Waves? I can understand that we are able to measure something to a tiny fraction of a proton when the subject and observer are both moving relative to each other through space but how is it possible...

Is it correct to say a varying electric field creates a magnetic field and vice-versa instead of saying that a charge creates such fields?

The recent observed gravitational wave is claimed due to two merging black holes colliding or infusing into each other. Could it be just another local Big Bang? (Of course I am implying Big Bang occurs in various scales). So "our Big Bang" was a large scale Big Bang and was triggered by two...

Hi I have learned at school that we can use Young's equation Lambda = ax/D to calculate the wavelength of light from an interference pattern I'm wondering if this equation also works for longitudinal waves? Thank you for your help

Let me ask one simple question. For less than a thousand dollars one can buy an apparatus which can provide experimental evidence for the gravitational attraction between two masses of one kilogram each, placed at distances of the order of ## 10^{-1} m ##. By making one of these masses to...