Standing Wave

Tags

physics

A special case of wave-(/brain/20200930001515-superposition/) where certain points (nodes) along the wave are fixed/standing. See here.

The idea being that a superimposed standing wave has:

• points where the amplitude is always cancelled out (and is thus constant)
• points where the wave is oscillating between maxima and minima, but is never anywhere else along the amplitude.

Generally when a wave superimposes onto itself it constructively and destructively interferes at different points across the medium of travel causing a visibly random/noisy (irregular and non-repeating) pattern. When the wave is at a certain frequency a standing pattern forms. For certain points along the wave each peak on the incoming wave is always met with a trough on the reflected wave (and vice versa). For none standing-points the amplitude fluctuates between a maximum +ve and -ve value (we refer to these as anti nodes).