Now You See It, Now You Don’t

□ You can say in words what these words mean: amplitude, speed of a wave, wavelength and
frequency

□ You can say what is the same and what is different between transverse and longitudinal waves

□ You aware that waves can be reflected from different surfaces

□ You can say how pictures are built up by lots of reflections, like in ultrasound scans during
pregnancy

□ Maths: If you know the time a reflection takes to get back you can use speed = distance ÷ time to work
out how far away the reflecting object is.

□ You know that differences in the density of materials will cause waves to be reflected or refracted

□ H You can say how earthquake waves can show which types of material are inside the Earth

□ Maths: you can rearrange the maths speed = frequency × wavelength So, if you get given some
numbers for any 2 of the 3, you can work out the last one

□ You know that all electromagnetic waves travel at the same speed in space (3×108 m/s, or
300,000,000 m/s)

□ You know that electromagnetic waves all have different frequencies and different wavelengths

□ Electromagnetic Wave Uses/Dangers:

o visible light can be used for iris recognition (coloured bit of your eye)

o infrared sensors can be used to measure temperature

o X-rays can be used to see inside luggage and to detect bone fractures

o microwaves are used to track rain clouds

o ultraviolet can be used to detect forged banknotes

o microwaves heats up body tissue

o microwave radiation from mobile phones or masts could pose health risks, but the signals
probably aren’t strong enough to make you worried

o too much infrared can burn you

o too much ultraviolet light, X-rays and Gamma rays can cause cancers...in other words...

o H ...the damage caused by each type of wave gets more the higher the frequency gets (or
the shorter the wavelength gets)

□ sending information as a digital signal cuts down on ‘noise’ compared with analogue

□ optical fibres use total internal reflection of light waves to transfer information over long distances
by reflecting 100% of the light signal off the inside surface