WAVES AND LIGHT

CHAPTER 17

17-1. Water Waves

One of the first illustrations of waves mentioned water are a common example. We can also see
inChapter 16 was that of ripples on a pond. The waves in an ordinary tub of water, but in the labo-
spreading out of waves in the form of larger and ratory we use more convenient apparatus called
a
larger circles is familiar to everyone. For ex- a ripple tank. The ripple tank (Fig. 17-2) has a
ample, a fish nibbling at a worm on a fine gives glass bottom which makes it possible to project
away its presence to the angler who sees the cir- images of the waves onto a screen. These images
cular waves produced by the up-and-down mo- are produced because the crests of the waves act
tion of the float attached to the line. as converging lenses and tend to focus the light
Because water waves move along the surface
and do not extend downward to any appreciable
depth, they are known as surface waves. If you
have watched fish in an aquarium, perhaps you
have noticed that they are undisturbed by the shielded light source'

waves. A submarine commander does not fear a

stormy sea as the captain of a surface ship might.
He dives his submarine and travels along unaf-
fected by the powerful waves above.
If we look at water waves through the side of
an aquarium, we are able to see their shape. We
notice that, while there are some variations, they
are generally similar and look something like the
illustration in Fig. 17-1. The upper portions are
called crests and the lower portions, troughs. The
waves produced by a boat as it moves through the

paper screen

z
17—1. An illustration of water waves. 17-2. The ripple tank.

260
 WAVES AND LIGHT 261

from the lamp while the troughs, acting as di-

verging lenses, tend to spread it out. Therefore

the crests appear on the screen as bright bands
while the troughs appear dark. /Y
/ \ s^ \
/ /
17-2. Straight and Circular Pulses
i
/ \
/ / \
We can generate a straight pulse, like the long
L* 1 1
1

^1
bow waves caused by a passing boat, by dipping I
a ruler into the surface of the water of the ripple
\
_J /

\ circular pulse / /
tank. The motion of the pulse is such that its
1
crest always remains parallel to a marking its
line /
/
original position. The distance between parallel
lines ismeasured along a perpendicular, thus the
direction of motion of the pulse (also called the
direction of propagation) is perpendicular to the the same pulse later

wave crest. This direction is called the normal to

the crest. In Fig. 17-3 the crest of a straight 17-4. An expanding circular pulse.

pulse is shown as a heavy black line. Its position

at a later time is shown by the dashed line. The
direction of propagation is shown by the arrow.
tangent
Whenever we draw a straight pulse we shall
indicate its direction of propagation by a small
arrow.

/ segment

'
same pulse later t

V_y
direction of
proportion

straight pulse
1 of segment

17—3. A straight pulse moves at right angles to its crest. The 17-5. A tiny segment of a circular pulse. The segment acts as
arrow indicates the direction. though it were straight and moves along a radius away from the
center.
Wecan also produce circular pulses in the
ripple tank simply by dipping a finger into the
water. Fig. 17-4 is a drawing of such a pulse at 17-3. Reflection
two During the time interval, the
different times. We a pulse on a spring can be re-
recall that
pulse has expanded to form a larger circle. We flected,and we may expect that water waves can
cannot assign a direction to the whole circular also undergo reflection. Consider a straight
pulse because it moves in all directions. Instead pulse as it moves away from the ruler toward
let us look at a segment of the circular pulse which the opposite end of the tank. To reflect it we
is small enough to be considered straight (Fig. place a barrier in the middle of the tank parallel
17-5). The direction of propagation of such a to the ruler. The pulse strikes the barrier and re-
segment is along the radius and away from the flects back in the direction from which it came,
center of the circle. This direction is normal to just like a pulse on a spring.
wave just
the crest of the as the direction of propa- Now let us change the position of the reflecting
gation of straight waves is normal to their crests. barrier so that the pulse is no longer parallel to it.
262 WAVES AND LIGHT

barrier

reflected pulse

17-7. A straight pulse incident on a barrier. The angle of

incidence i is equal to the angle the pulse makes with the barrier

17-6. Two straight pulses. A is approaching the barrier, moving

up the picture. While the upper part of B is still moving up the
picture, the lower part of 6, which appears as a vertical white
wave crest, has been reflected, and it is moving to the right.

The white diagonal line has been drawn in to show the position

of the edge of the barrier.

reflected pulse
(later)

In Fig. 17-6 we see two straight pulses, one ap-

proaching and one being reflected from a barrier. incident pulse |
normal to the barrier
The angle which the incident pulse makes with
is labelled V while the angle
the reflecting barrier
between the reflected pulse and the barrier is
17-8. The reflection of a stroight wave from a straight barrier.
labelled r'. Measure the angles r' and /" on the Just as in light, the angle of reflection r equals the angle of
photograph and you will find that r' = V. If we incidence i.

repeated the experiment with different angles/",

we would always find r' = /'. words, the angle of reflection equals the angle of
This result resembles the law of reflection of incidence. We have shown, therefore, that wavej,
light from mirrors, which we obtained in Section and light follow the same law of reflection (Fig.
12-4. There we found that the angle of reflection T7=8J.
equals the angle of incidence. But in optics the An expanding circular pulse can also be re-
angles were measured between the direction of flected from a straight barrier. Fig. 17-9 shows
propagation and the normal to the reflecting sur- the approach and reflection of such a pulse. We
face. We can define the angles of incidence and /'
notice that the reflected part of the pulse is an
reflection r for waves in the same way that is, — arc of a circle. The center of this circle is at a
as the angle between the direction of propagation point P' which same distance behind the
is at the
(which is normal to the wave crest) and the nor- barrier as the source P is in front of it. The re-
mal to the barrier. flected pulse appears to come from P'. This cor-
The construction in Fig. 17-7 shows that the responds to the situation in optics where we
angle of incidence i is equal to the angle /". A placed a point source in front of a mirror. The
similar construction shows that r = r'. Our ob- reflected light then appeared to come from the
served equality r' = V then becomes r = i, or in image point behind the mirror. (See Figs. 12-9
 :

WAVES AND LIGHT 263

17—9. Reflection of a circular pulse from a straight barrier. In

the photograph at the the pulse approaching the barrier,

and 12-10.) By using curved barriers or combina- left, is

while at 'he right a part of it has been reflected.

tions of two or more straight barriers, we can
demonstrate with the ripple tank all of the phe-
difficult to follow the pulses and measure the
nomena of reflection that we studied in connec-
distances and times required.
tion with light. Just as the formation of images
by mirrors followed from the laws of reflection
A third method is to generate pulses one after
another at equal time intervals T. In doing this,
in optics, so does the corresponding formation
the wave generator repeats motion once every
its
of images by "mirrors" in the ripple tank.
interval T. Such a motion is called periodic, and

the time interval T is called the period. Another

17-4. Speed of Propagation and Periodic way of describing this periodic motion is to tell
Waves how often the motion repeats itself in a unit time
Waves in different media propagate with dif- interval; that is, by giving the frequency/ of repe-

ferent speeds. For example, we can see the tition. For example, if the motion repeats every
waves on a coil spring speed up when we stretch 1/10 sec, the frequency is ten times per second.

the coil, and we can see the waves in a rubber In general/ = 1/T.
hose slow down when we fill it with water. In Let us now concentrate on some point in the
this section we shall learn how to make quan- tank. The pulses produced by the generator move
titativemeasurements of the speed of water toward and they pass the point with
this point,

waves the ripple tank.

in There are several the same frequency with which they leave the
ways of going about such a measurement. source. If ten are sent out each second, ten will
One way is to generate a straight pulse and pass each second. The frequency of the wave is
measure with a stop watch the time t the pulse therefore also given by/ = 1/T, and Tis the time
takes to travel a specified distance /. The speed between the passage of successive waves. Fur-
is then equal to the distance traveled divided by thermore, as the waves move, the distance be-
the time taken tween any two adjacent pulses is always the same
and is called the wave length X (lambda). The
v = l/t.
wave pattern which we have been describing is
Another way is to generate two pulses, one called a periodic straight wave (Fig. 17-10).

after the other. By the time the second pulse is We can obtain the speed of a periodic wave in a

generated (after a time /) the first pulse has manner similar to that which we used for a pair of

traveled a distance /. From then on both pulses pulses. We know that the
pulses are separated by

travel along, while the distance / between them a distance X and that each pulse moves over this

remains the same. We can measure this distance distance in a time T. Hence the speed of prop-
with a ruler, and again v = ///. These methods agation is

are simple in principle, but in practice it is rather v = x/r.

264 WAVES AND LIGHT

17—10. Periodic straight waves moving across a ripple tank.

Using the relation/ = 1/7", we find that

17-11. Periodic circular waves.

or that the speed of propagation of a periodic

speed times the time the shutter is closed (Fig.
wave is the product of the frequency and the wave
17-12). If we look through the shutter while it is
length.
periodically opening and closing, the pattern will
The relation that we have just obtained is by no
usually appear to move. Suppose, however, that
means restricted to waves in a ripple tank. It is
the period of the shutter is just the same as that
equally good for any periodic wave. Such things
of the wave. Then, during the time the shutter is
as the straightness of the wave, the nature of the
closed, every pulse justmoves up to the position
ripple tank, and the properties of the water did
of the pulse ahead of it, and we see the same
not come into the argument from which we got
pattern every time the shutter opens. That is, we
our result. In particular, we could have followed
the same procedure with circular periodic waves 17—12. Crests of a periodic wove seen at successive openings

and would have found the relationship v = fX A and 8 of a stroboscope shutter. In the top diagram the fre-

quency of the stroboscope is greater than that of the waves.

again. In this case the wave length is measured
At the bottom, it is the same. The dashed lines, of course, are
along the radius (Fig. 17-11); and we find it is not visible.
equal to the wave length of a straight wave of the
same frequency. The speed of circular waves is
therefore equal to that of straight waves in the
same medium. Furthermore, we could have ap-
plied the above arguments to any other kind of
periodic waves —
for example, periodic waves on
coils —
and we would have the same relation
v =/A.
Now we come to the advantage of the above re-
lation for the measurement of v. Imagine that in-
stead of watching the wave continuously we look
at it through a shutter which is closed most of the
time and opens periodically for short time inter-
vals. The stroboscope described in Chapter 2 is
such a device. The first time the shutter opens we
will get a glimpse of the wave pattern in a certain
position. During the time the shutter is closed,
all of the pulses will move a distance equal to their
 WAVES AND LIGHT 265

see a stationary pattern from which it is easy to

measure the wave length. Moreover, as we have
said, the period of the shutter is equal to the
period of the wave and it can be measured by
counting the number of times the shutter opened
is

in a given time interval, i.e., by measuring the

frequency of the shutter. This gives us/. Now
that we have both \ and / for the wave, we can
make use of the general relation v = f\ in order
to determine the speed.

17-5. Refraction
We mentioned earlier that the speed of prop-
agation of waves depends on the properties of
the medium through which they move. In the
case of waves on the surface of water, the speed
depends on the depth of the water. Therefore
17-13. Passage of waves from deep to shallow water. The
water of two different depths can be considered deep water is at the bottom and the shallow water at the top
to be two different media for wave propagation. of the picture. Note that the wave length is shorter in the shallow

This is a very useful property because by merely water.

changing the depth of the water in part of the

ripple tank we are able to study the behavior of the wave length in the shallow section is less than
waves when they pass from one medium to an- in the deep one. But this is not the only change.
other. To see that the speed indeed depends on Fig. 17-14 shows that when the straight waves

the depth, we now make half the tank shallow by hit the boundary, they remain straight but change

placing a thick glass plate on the bottom of the their direction of propagation. The new direc-
back part of the tank, thereby dividing it into two tion is closer to the normal to the boundary than
sections of different depths with the dividing line the original direction of propagation. We re-

parallel to the waves. Let us look at the waves member from our study of optics that this is what
through the stroboscope. By turning it at the happens to light when it passes from one medium
right frequency we can stop the motion of the to another in which its speed is less (Sections 13-2
pattern in both sections of the tank simultaneously. and 15-7). For light this refraction is quantita-
Hence the frequency is the same in both sections; tively described by Snell's law. The following
it is not affected by the change in depth. But
Fig. 17-13 shows that the wave length X 2 in the
shallow part is shorter than X l5 the wave length in
the deep part.* Since the speed of propagation
is the product of the same frequency and the
appropriate wave length, we see that the speed in
the shallow part (where the wave length is smaller)
is less than in the deep part — that is, v2 < vv

Now let us repeat the experiment with another

glass plate inside the tank, cut in such a way that
the boundary between the two sections will form
an angle with the waves. We already know that
•You will notice that the waves tend to disappear toward
end of the shallow section. They die down only
the
because we do not have an ideal state of affairs where we
can phenomenon we wish to study. Here, as
isolate the
in theexperiments with the coil spring, there is a certain 17-14. Refraction of waves at a boundary between deep and
amount of resistance present which reduces the motion shallow sections of the ripple tank. Note the weak reflected
and finally causes it to die out. waves.
 :

266 WAVES AND LIGHT

optics by n 12 . Thus

sin
- —=
sin r
/

n, 2 and
,
n,a2
X
X,
= r1,
2

We can now express the value of n X2 in terms of

the speeds of propagation of the waves in the two
media. In general the speed v is related to the wave
length as v = f\. In particular then, X, = vjf
and X 2 = v2
/f.
Hence

n 12 = Xj
= vjf = vA
X2 v2
/f v2

This equation says that the index of refraction

is equal to the ratio of the speed of propagation
17-15. The geometry of the refraction of two consecutive wave
in the first medium to that in the second medium.
fronts.
We arrived at Snell's law and the relation of n l2
to the speeds by theoretical analysis of our pre-
question now suggests itself. Does Snell's law vious results. We could get the same conclusions
also hold true forwaves such as those in the ripple by direct measurements. First we could measure
tank, when they pass from one medium to another? many pairs of angles and thus establish i and r
There are two procedures open to us at this that sin /'/sin r =
Then we could
const. = n l2 .

point. We can measure many angles of incidence measure the speeds of propagation in the two
and angles of refraction in the ripple tank, and media and establish that n l2 = vjv 2 Such .

thus find experimentally whether they are related measurements have often been carried out, and
by Snell's law; or we can find out whether Snell's they do agree with our conclusions.
law can be predicted theoretically from the prop- We now recall that the particle model of light as
erties of waves which we already know. We developed by Newton (1669) also explained the
shall take the second course here. existence of a constant index of refraction for a
In Section 17-3, we proved that the angle of given pair of substances but predicted its value to
incidence is equal to the angle between the inci- be n l2 = v 2 /v 1 and 15-7). Our wave
(Sections 15-2
dent wave crest and the barrier. Likewise, the model, advocated by Huygens (1677) predicts
angle of refraction is equal to the angle between n 12 = v x \v 2 just the inverse of Newton's result.
,

the refracted wave crest and the barrier. Let us The position of the wave model of light was
now draw two consecutive wave fronts as they are strengthened by various experiments at the begin-
refracted at the barrier (Fig. 17-15). (There is ning of the nineteenth century. But this particular
no need to add the normals, since angles equal to question was not settled for almost two hundred
i and r already appear in the drawing.) Then by years. In 1862 Foucault actually measured the
definition speed of light in air and in water and found that
the speed in water was less. The exact ratio
Xx X2
Smi Smr = vjv 2 =
1.33 was measured by Michelson in 1883.
=AB' AB-
This ratio agrees with the wave model because the
The values of sin i and sin r change from case to index of refraction of water is 1.33 (Chapter 13).
case, but their ratio is a constant independent of One point still needs clarification: not all the
the angle of incidence, as we see by actually light hitting the boundary between the two media
dividing sin i by sin r is refracted. Part of it is reflected even if both
media are transparent. The same holds for waves.
sin :
h constant. In Fig. 17-14 the size of the reflected wave is
sin r AB A, x,
rather small, but you can see it if you look closely.
The relation sin if sin r = constant is Snell's law, We conclude, therefore, that as far as refraction
this time for waves. We shall again call the con- is concerned, waves have just the properties which
stant the index of refraction and denote it as in we need in order to explain the behavior of light.
 WAVES AND LIGHT 267

17—16. Refraction of low-frequency waves. The black marker 17-17. Refraction of high-frequency waves. The refracted
is placed parallel to the refracted waves. waves are not parallel to the black marker.

17-6. Dispersion at least one of the two media ; otherwise the ratio
In the last section we studied the refraction of could not show such a dependence. A medium
periodic waves as they pass from one medium to in which the speed of waves depends on the
another. We found the index of refraction to be frequency is called a dispersive medium.
equal to the ratio of the speeds of propagation in In the ripple tank we can measure the speed of
the two media: n. :
= : :
:
. We did not state the periodic waves of different frequencies (Section
frequency of the waves because we had previously 17-4), and thus see directly that the speed
learned that the speeds of propagation depend changes with the frequency, provided we make
only on the media in which the waves travel. our measurements accurately enough. The state-
Accordingly we would expect to find the same ment we so often make, that the speed of waves
index of refraction for waves of different frequency depends only on the medium, is therefore an
provided we repeat the experiment with the same idealization. To be sure, this idealization is a
two media, for example, water of the same two good approximation to the true state of affairs
depths. provided we are not concerned with small changes
What we actually shown in Figs.
observe is in the speed (Section 16-5).
F-16 and 17-17. In we see the refrac-
Fig. 17-16 We made a similar idealization in our study of
tion of a wave of low frequency (long wave length). the refraction of light in Chapter 13. You will

To indicate the direction of the refracted waves recall that the index of refraction of light at first

we placed a rod on the screen of the ripple tank. appeared to be dependent only on the two media
It is exactly parallel to the refracted wave fronts. through which the light was passing for ex- —
We then increased the frequency (i.e., decreased the ample, air and Then a closer examination
glass.

wave length), leaving the rod untouched. Notice of refraction, using prisms, showed that the index
that in Fig. 17-17 the rod is no longer parallel changes slightly with color; it is a little larger for
to the refracted wave crests. The wave with the violet than for red.
higher frequency is clearly refracted in a direction The index of refraction of waves depends
slightly different from that taken by the low- slightlyon the frequency. That of light depends
frequency wave, although the angle of incidence slightlyon the color. Is there perhaps a relation
is same in both cases. The index of refraction
the between the dependence of the index of refraction
for the two media therefore depends somewhat on of waves on the frequency and that of light on
the frequency of the wave. By analogy with the color? It is tempting to assume that light is a
dependence of the index of refraction on the color periodic wave and that different colors correspond
of light, which we have discussed in Section 13-8, to waves of different frequencies. At this point
this phenomenon is called dispersion. Since the we cannot prove that our assumption is correct,
index of refraction equals the ratio of the speeds but in the next chapter we shall learn how to
of propagation in the two media, we have to con- measure the wave length of light of different
clude that the speed must depend on frequency in colors. We can then find the corresponding
268 WAVES AND LIGHT

but at the sides they curve, giving the impression

of circular waves originating from the edges of the
opening. This means that after passing through
the opening not all of the wave propagates in
its original direction. Part of it is bent. This
phenomenon is called diffraction.
The diffraction of waves makes it hard to under-
stand how we can explain the straight-line propa-
gation of light with a wave model. If light is a
barrier barrier wave, when it passes through a small hole some of
the light should bend instead of traveling straight
ahead. In a wave model of light there must be at
least one great difference between light waves and
water waves.

straight wave generator

What could this difference be? We know the
wave length X of the water not waves. We do
know the wave length of light waves; it may be
very different. Let us, therefore, examine the
17—18. Ripple-tank arrangement for the experiment shown in
diffraction of water waves of different wave
Fig. 17-19. lengths. In Fig. 17-20 we see three pictures of
periodic waves with different wave lengths, each
frequencies, and we shall indeed establish that
passing through the same opening. We notice a
light waves of various frequencies appear to our
definite trend. In the first picture the wave length
eyes as light of various colors.*
is six-tenths of the width d of the opening. There
the part of the straight wave which gets through
17-7. Diffraction
the opening is almost entirely converted into a
Our study of refraction and dispersion clearly
circular wave. Or, in other words, the opening
shows that the wave picture of light succeeds
acts like a source of circular waves when straight
where the corpuscular picture fails. Yet the
waves fall on it. In the second picture X is three-
corpuscular picture predicts correctly that light
tenths of d. In this case the wave which gets
should propagate in straight lines and cast sharp
through is not so curved as in the first picture.
shadows. Can a wave model also account for
It has a straight section in the middle but part of
these properties of light? Again, a good way to
it still bends at the sides. In the third picture X
investigate these questions is to experiment with
is one-tenth of d and here the bending fadesaway
waves in the ripple tank. We use a straight-wave
close to the forward direction and we obtain an
generator and two barriers parallel to it placed in
almost sharp shadow. Provided we keep the
line with an opening between them (Fig. 17-18).
These barriers would cast sharp shadows if light
were incident upon them from the direction of the
generator. What happens when we send in a
periodic straight wave of wave length X is shown
in Fig. 17-19. In the middle of the pattern beyond
the opening the wave crests are almost straight,

*By comparing the bending of waves in Figs. 17-16 and

17-17 with the dispersion of light by glass (see Fig. 1 3-1 5),
we might come to the conclusion that the wave length of
violet light is longer than that of red light. However, if
we had done the experiments in the ripple tank in a dif-
ferent range of wave lengths, the shorter water waves
would have bent more than those of longer wave length.
Therefore, studying the dispersion of water waves does
not establish the relation between color and wave length 17-19. Straight waves passing through an opening. Note the
of light. curving of the waves around the ends of the barriers.
 WAVES AND LIGHT 269

width of the opening J fixed, a further decrease in

\ makes shadow still sharper. We can also
the
keep \ fixed and change J: then we find that the
amount of bending does not depend on X and d
separate!) but onl\ on the fraction \/d. To sum
up. waves are strongly diffracted when they pass
through an opening of size comparable to their
wave length, and there is hardly any diffraction if
the wave length is verv small compared to the
width of the opening.
We all know that light passing through a key-
hole is not bent but seems to continue in its origi-
nal direction. If light is a wave, this implies that
its wave length must be much less than the size of
a keyhole. But to be certain that light is a periodic

wave we should be able to do an experiment which

will show diffraction. Two such experiments were

described in Section 11-7. Suppose that we

repeat the experiment in which we examined a
light source through a narrow slit between two

fingers. When the slit is half a centimeter across,

an electric light bulb viewed through it appears
normal. As the slit is narrowed to a width of
about a tenth of a millimeter, however, the bulb
appears elongated in a direction perpendicular to
your fingers. Moreover, you can hold your
fingers in any direction and the elongation always
appears perpendicular to them. This is a clear
indication that the light is diffracted by the open-
ing.
We can get amore information from our
little

experiments with light if we return for a minute to

Fig. 17-20. Examination of Fig. 17-20 suggests
an explanation of the fact, stated in Chapter 11,
that all shadows, even those of large obstacles,
are slightly blurred by diffraction. Even in the
bottom picture, where X/dis about 1/10, the wave 17—20. Three views of waves passing through the same opening.
crests near the edge of the shadow are slightly Note the decrease in bending at the shorter wave lengths.
bent. If we observe these waves at a distance far
from the slit, the effect of this bending will be to
spread the region reached by the waves. Since,
as in the experiment with our fingers, we only be-
gin to see the diffraction of light when the aperture
is about one-tenth of a millimeter, we can now
conclude that the wave length of light is even
smaller than this.
Briefly then,from our discussion in this chapter,
light can be described as waves of very small wave
lengths.
270 WAVES AND LIGHT

6. Assume you are looking at a periodic wave of

FOR HOME, DESK, AND LAB frequency / = 4 per sec through a two-slit
stroboscope. What do you expect to see if you
rotate the stroboscope with a frequency of 1, 2,
1. In Fig. 17-7 if i = 25° , what is the value of r'l and 4 revolutions per sec?

2. A straight pulse approaches a barrier at an angle 7. A point source in the ripple tank produces circu-
of 30° . What is the direction of motion of the lar periodic waves. By using a stroboscope to
pulse after reflection? Indicate it on a diagram. stop the motion, we measure the difference in
radius between the first and sixth circular crests
3. Describe the wave motion that results when you and find it to be 10 cm.
dip your finger into the center of a circular tank (a) What is the wave length?
of water. What would be the motion under ideal (b) Why didn't we calculate the wave length by
conditions? using the radius, say, of the fifth pulse only?
(c) Why do we use this method of measurement

4. Suppose we place a barrier in a ripple tank in the rather than take the difference between neighbor-
shape of an ellipse as in Fig. 17-21. When a ing crests?
circular pulse generated at point A, it reflects
is

from the barrier and converges at point B.

(a) From this experiment what can you say
about the geometry of an ellipse? (Hint: Con-
sider tiny segments of the circular pulse originat-
ing from A and see how the ellipse must be shaped
^
so that all segments reach B at the same time.)
(b) What will happen if we generate a pulse at
point Bl
(c) Will such a convergence also happen when
you dip your finger in at some point other than
AorBl

5. In Fig. 17-22 a straight pulse approaches a right-

angled barrier at an angle of 45° .
barrier
(a) How does it reflect?
(b) What happens if the wave is incident at
17-22. A straight pulse approaching a right-angled barrier.
some other angle?

17—21. Reflection from an ellip-

tical barrier. A pulse has been

generated at A and is photo-
graphed as it converges on 8.
 WAVES AND LIGHT 271

17-23. Curving of a straight wave

when the water becomes more and
more shallow from one side to the

8. (a) In a ripple tank when one pulse is sent every 13. The ripple tank is arranged so that the water
^5 sec, we find that X is 3 cm. What is the speed gradually becomes shallow from one side to the
of propagation? other. Because of this, on one side of the tank
(b) In the same medium we send two pulses, the speed of a wave crest is different from that on
the second one i sec after the first. How far the other side. As a result, straight waves become
apart are the/? curved (Fig. 17-23). In the picture the pulses are
moving toward the top of the page.
9. What is the index of refraction in passing from (a) Which is the shallow side?
the deep to the shallow water in Fig. 17-13? (b) Does a similar phenomenon occur with
light? Be prepared to discuss this in class.
10. Measure the index of refraction in Fig. 17-14 by
themethod you used in the previous problem, and
by finding the ratio of the sines of the appro-
priate angles. Compare the results.

11. A ripple-tank wave passes from a shallow to a deep (deep)

section with an incident angle of 45° and a re-
fracted angle of 60 \
(a) What is the ratio of speeds in the two
sections?
(b) If the wave speed is 25 cm per second in the
(shallow)
deep section, what is it in the shallow one? barrier barrier

12. (a) A tire on an automobile wheel has a circum-

ference of 7.0 feet.When the wheel is turning 200
times per minute, what is the speed of the auto-
mobile in feet per min? (deep)
(b) A light wave whose frequency is 6.0 X 10 u
per sec is passed through a liquid. Within the
liquid the wave length is measured and found to
straight wave generator
be 3.0 X 10- 5 centimeters. What is the speed of
light in this liquid?
(c) What is the wave length in vacuum (from
which the frequency was calculated)? 17—24. The ripple-tank arrangement used in making the
(d) Whatthe index of refraction of the liquid
is picture in Fig. 17—25. The oval region between the barriers has
for light of this frequency? shallow water, while water in the rest of the tank is deep.
272 WAVES AND LIGHT

17—25. The wave pattern with periodic waves and an arrange- 17-26. The same wave pattern as in Fig. 17-25 but with a
ment as in Fig. 17—24. shorter wave length.

14. Water waves traveling in the deep section of a 17. Suppose the oval region in Fig. 17-24 is deep and
ripple tank at 34 cm/sec meet a shallow part at an the surrounding region is shallow.
angle of 60° . In the shallow part all waves travel (a) What will happen to the straight waves?
at 24 cm/sec. When the frequency is increased (b) Of what optical arrangement is this a
slightly, the waves are found to travel at 32 cm/sec model?
in the deep section.
(a) Compute the angle of refraction for each
18. How do we know that the wave length of light
must be very much less than a centimeter?
case.
Considering the ripple-tank conditions, is
(b) 19. Imagine our eyes were sensitive only to light of
it measure the two speeds and find their
easier to wave length 0.1 mm. How would this affect our
difference directly or to measure it indirectly by ability to see? Could you thread a needle?
the angular difference found in (a)?
(c) How can we detect small differences in the 20. If sound is a wave phenomenon, how would you
speed of light? explain the common experience of hearing sounds
from around corners?
15. We set up the ripple tank as shown in Fig. 17-24
21. Sound waves in air usually travel at about 330
and generate a periodic straight wave. The result- meters per second. Audible sounds have a fre-
ing wave pattern is shown in the photograph in
quency range of about 30 to 15,000 cycles per
Fig. 17-25.
second. What is the range of wave lengths of
(a) Explain what is taking place.
these sound waves?
(b) Of what optical arrangement is this a model?

16. In Fig. 17-26 we see a photograph taken under

FURTHER READING
the same conditions Problem 1 5 except
as those in Huygens, Christian, Moments of Discovery. Edited
that here the waves have a shorter wave length. by G. Schwartz and P. Bishop, Basic Books, 1958.
(a) How do the two photographs differ? Huygens' original account setting forth the wave
(b) What can you conclude from this difference? theory of light.