At the end of a long semester of physics you decide to take and break and drive

Question

At the end of a long semester of physics you decide to take and break and drive to the beach Unfortunately you cannot get your mind off physics as you watch the waves roll into shore Believe me; it will happen if it hasn't already You notice a bottle floating in the water. Does the bottle move closer to shore as quickly as the waves do? Explain. Also, being a good physics student, you have gained the ability to judge times and distances very accurately. Describe how you might make some simple approximation to find the following physical properties of the waves. Wavelength Frequency Speed (remember, speed can be a very broad topic See #1) Wave number

Explanation / Answer

Part A:

No.

The bottle would remain in its place as the wave progress and approach the shore.

This is because the waves produced in water are transverse waves and hence the particles of water vibrate perpendicular to the propogation of the waves. Therefore, the bottle remains at its place although the wave reaches the shore.

Part B:

(i) Wavelength: to determine wavelength, we use

v = n*lambda;

where, v is the speed of the wave; n is the frequency of the wave; lambda is the wave length;

ii) frequency of the wave can be known just by counting the number of upward movements of the bottle by starting a stop watch in your mobile phone.

Use,

frequency = no. of upward movements/ one second

iii) speed,v = distance / time

the moment the bottle starts vibrating, start your stop watch and measure the time taken for the wave to reach the shore and the approximate distance of the bottle from the shore.

iv) wave number, k = 2*pi/lambda

substitute the lambda to get wave number.

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