Michael Fowler UVa
A very simple spreadsheet animating the process. Press and hold the end of thescrollbar.
This spreadsheet plots the motion of a damped oscillator: you can specify the initial conditions and degree of damping, and find critical damping.
An external driving force is added to the previous spreadsheet: see how damping and resonance compete.
Find out how the period of a real pendulum varies with the amplitude.
From Vladimir Vasc, in the
Kinds of waves in one dimension: transverse, longitudinal, traveling, standing.
How applying F = ma to a little piece of string leads to an equation that describes many different waves.
What happens to a wave when it reaches the end of the string?
Deriving the Wave Equation for sound waves in a pipe. Energy density and power in a sound wave in a pipe.
Extending the Wave Equation to higher dimensions. Huygens’ picture of wave propagation. Young’s two-slit measurement of the wavelength of light.
Finding these forces and applying Newton’s Law to a small piece of string is the way to the Wave Equation. Flashlet by Patrick LeDuc.
Water Waves from Two Point Sources Java Applet by Santosh Pisharody