Motion of Waves
1.0 Introduction
1.0 Introduction
Wave motion is a kind of disturbance that travels through a medium having property of elasticity and inertia due to the repeated periodic vibrations of its particles about their mean position.
Each particle repeats the motion of previous particles, so that there is a regular phase difference between one particle and the next.
Wave is any disturbance from a source that propagates without the transport of matter through medium or space.
Waves can be classified into following three categories:
- Mechanical waves: These types of waves requires medium for its propogation. For example: Water waves, sound wavesm seismic waves etc. Mechanical waves are also known as elastic waves.
- Electromagnetic waves: These types of waves do not require any medium for their propagation. For example: Light waves, X-rays, micro waves, etc. All electromagnetic waves travel through vaccum at the speed of $3 \times {10^8}\;m/s$.
- Matter waves: These types of waves are associated with moving electrons, protons and neutrons and other fundamental particles and even atom and molecules. These waves are also known as de-Broglie waves.
