A vibration is a wiggle in time; a wave is a wiggle in space and time. In this e

Question

A vibration is a wiggle in time; a wave is a wiggle in space and time. In this exercise, you will explore that connection by transferring the motion of the second hand of a clock (a vibration, even if a slow one), to a wave. Print out the image of a clock and open the spreadsheet called Grapher. You will find both of them on the course page in Learn. Use a metric ruler to measure the displacement of the tip of the second hand every five seconds. That’s the distance above or below the center line that connects the 3 and the 9. Count the number as positive if the tip is above the line (towards the 12) and negative if below (towards the six). Enter each value in the tinted boxes in the Grapher tool and it will immediately plot them for you. Then answer the questions based on your graph.

Explanation / Answer

1. The period of wave is .02 seconds.The time foe one complete cycle in seconds

2. The amplitude of wave is .01

3. If we had started from some other initial position, say when second hand was on 3, the period would be the same

4, If we had started when the second hand was on 3 the amplitude would still be the same.

5. If we had started when the second hand was in 3,

what would be diffferent?

Though we are starting from later point, the period would still be the same distance, and the amplitude is reliant on the period so if th period is the same then so is the amplitude.

simply the seconds from which we start measuring would be one notch behind , so the arch of each wave would be 5 sec earlier.

6. Using the period from above the frequency is of course way too low for us to hear.please round your answer to three digits, not counting the starting zero; round it to four decimal places total.

The frequency is .125 Hz

7. If you had used same picture of same clock but had graphed the minute hand instead ,the amplitude would change the frequency would be the same.

8. If you had plotted the motion of second hand on your watch instead of clock then only the frequency would change.

9.This is a snapshot graph because displacement is plotted on Y-axis and time on X-axis.

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