Waves

A wave is a disturbance that transfers energy and momentum from one point to another through a medium, without any net transport of the medium's particles themselves — each particle only oscillates about its equilibrium position. Waves are classified by the relation between the direction of particle vibration and the direction the wave travels.

In a transverse wave, particles oscillate pe

The principle of superposition states that when two or more waves overlap at a point, the resultant displacement is simply the algebraic sum of the displacements each wave would have produced alone: $y=y_1+y_2$. This single rule underlies interference, standing waves, and beats alike.

Interference is the superposition of two waves of the same frequency and amplitude travelling in the

The Doppler effect is the apparent change in a wave's frequency — its apparent frequency ${\nu }^{\prime }$ — perceived by an observer when there is relative motion between the source and the observer along the line joining them, even though the source's own, actual frequency $\nu$ stays unchanged.

When the source moves and the observer is stationary, the source itself covers some distance between em