CK-12 Physics Concepts - Intermediate

Answer Key

Chapter 12: Waves and Energy Transfer

12.1 Transverse Waves

Practice

Questions

1. What is the distance between the base line and crest called?
2. What symbol is used for wavelength?
3. What is the relationship between period and frequency?

Answers

1. Amplitude.
2. The greek letter lambda 𝜆.
3. Frequency is equal to the inverse of period and vice versa.

Review

Questions

1. A sound wave produced by a chime 515 m away is heard 1.50 s later.

a. What is the speed of sound in air?
b. The sound wave has a frequency of 436 Hz. What is its period?
c. What is the wavelength of the sound?
2. A hiker shouts toward a vertical cliff 685 m away. The echo is heard 4.00 s later.
a. What is the speed of sound in air?
b. Why is this speed of sound slightly different from the previous answer?
c. The wavelength of the sound is 0.750 m. What is the frequency?
d. What is the period of the wave?
3. The speed of light in air is 3.00 × 108 m/s. If a light wave has a wavelength of
5.80 × 10-7 m, what is its frequency?

Answers

1.
515𝑚
a. Using = 343 m/s
1.5𝑠
1 1
b. Using 𝑇 = 𝑓 = 436 = 0.0023 s
𝑚
c. Using 𝜆 = 𝑣𝑇 ∶ 343 ∗ 0.0023𝑠 = the wavelength is 0.79 m.
𝑠

1
2.
𝑑 685𝑚
a. Using 𝑉 = 𝑡 ∶ 2𝑠 = 342.5 m/s (note that the time of 4s was round trip)
b. This is slightly different because of the altitude. The speed of sound is
slightly faster at higher altitudes; the speed of sound at sea level is accepted to
be 340 m/s.
𝑚
𝑣 342.5
c. Using 𝑓 = 𝜆 ∶ 𝑠
= 457 Hz
0.750𝑚
1 1
d. Using 𝑇 = 𝑓 = 457 = 0.0022 s
𝑚
𝑣 (3.00×108 )
3. Using 𝑓 = 𝜆 ∶ 𝑠
= 𝟓. 𝟏𝟕 × 𝟏𝟎𝟏𝟒
5.80×10−7 𝑚

12.2 Longitudinal Waves

Practice

Questions

1. In your own words, how are compressions and rarefactions produced by a tuning fork?
2. Make a guess why sound can easily travel around corners (Hint: think of its medium).

Answers

1. Answers will vary. Should be similar to the explanation in the video.

2. Because sound is just air molecules compressing and expanding, the movement can
easily move in all directions.

Review

Questions

1. Some giant ocean waves have a wavelength of 25 m are and travel at speeds of
6.5 m/s. Determine the frequency and period of such a wave.
2. Bats use sound echoes to navigate and hunt. The emit pulses of high frequency
sound waves which reflect off obstacles in the surroundings. By detecting the
time delay between the emission and return of a pulse, a bat can determine the
location of the object. What is the time delay between the sending and return of a
pulse from an object located 12.5 m away? The approximate speed of sound is
340 m/s.
3. Sachi is listening to her favorite radio station, which broadcasts radio signals with
a frequency of . If the speed of the signals in air
is , what is the wavelength of these radio signals?

2
4. A longitudinal wave is observed to be moving along a slinky. Adjacent crests are
2.4 m apart. Exactly 6 crests are observed to move past a given point in 9.1
s. Determine the wavelength, frequency, and speed of this wave.
5. A sonar signal leaves a submarine, travels through the water to another
submarine and reflects back to the original submarine in 4.00 s. If the frequency
of the signal was 512 cycles per second and the wavelength of the signal was
2.93 m, how far away is the second submarine?

Answers
𝑚
𝑣 6.5 1
1. Use the equation 𝜆 = 𝑓 ∶ 𝑠
= the frequency is 0.26 Hz, and the period is 𝑓 =
25𝑚
1
= 3.85 s.
0.26𝐻𝑧
2. Note that the 12.5 m distance is each way: (12.5 m + 12.5 m)/340 m/s = 0.074 s.
𝑚
𝑣 2.997×108
3. Using 𝑓 = 𝜆 ∶ 𝑠
= 2.93 m.
1.023×108 𝐻𝑧
4. The wavelength is 2.4 m (the distance between crests). The frequency is 0.66
Hz (6 crests/sec / 9.1 s). The speed of the wave is 0.66 * 2.4m = 1.58 m/s.
5. The velocity of the signal is found by multiplying the frequency by the wavelength:
1500 m/s. Since the signal took 4 seconds, it traveled a total of 6000 m. This is the
distance to the second submarine and back, so the second submarine is 3000 m
away from the first.

12.3 Doppler Shift

Practice

Questions

1. What is necessary for a wave source / receiver in order to observe the Doppler effect?
2. How are the waves made with his finger in water similar to the sound waves? How
are they different?

Answers

1. One must be moving in relationship to the other.

2. In both types, the waves in the direction of movement had a smaller wavelength and
the waves in the opposite direction had a longer wavelength. The main difference
between the two is that the water wave is a transverse wave and the sound wave is
a longitudinal wave.

Review

Questions

3
1. What is the frequency heard by a person driving at 15 m/s toward a blowing
factory whistle if the emitted frequency is 800. Hz and the speed of sound is 340.
m/s?
2. While standing near a railroad crossing, a person hears a distant train
horn. According to the train’s engineer, the frequency emitted by the horn is 440
Hz and the train is traveling toward the railroad crossing at 20.0 m/s. If the speed
of sound is 340 m/s, what frequency will the observer hear?
3. After the train passed the person at the crossing, what frequency would he hear?

Answers

1. The sound is coming towards the person, so use the equation . Using this
800𝐻𝑧
equation, we determine 𝑓𝑜 = 15𝑚 = the apparent frequency is 837 Hz.
1− 𝑠
𝑚
340
𝑠
440𝐻𝑧
2. Again, the sound is approaching the listener. The apparent frequency is 𝑓𝑜 = 20
𝑚
1− 𝑠
𝑚
340
𝑠
= 468 Hz.
3. After the train has passed, the sound is moving away from the person. Using the

440𝐻𝑧
equation , the apparent velocity is 𝑓𝑜 = 20
𝑚 = 416 Hz.
1+ 𝑠
𝑚
340
𝑠

12.4 Reflection of Mechanical Waves

Practice

Questions

1. What happens to the wave when it is reflected from an open end?

2. What happens to the wave when it is reflected from a fixed end?

Answers

1. It travels in the opposite direction with the same polarity.

2. It travels in the opposite direction with the opposite polarity.

Review

Questions

4
1. Draw a diagram showing a surface with a normal line. On the diagram, show a
wave ray striking the surface with an angle of incidence of 60°. Draw the
reflection ray on the diagram and label the angle of reflection.
2. Light strikes a mirror’s surface at of 30° to the normal. What will the angle of
reflection be?
3. If the angle between the incident ray and the reflected ray is of 90°, what is the
angle of incidence?
4. When a water wave is reflected from a concrete wall, will the reflected wave be
inverted or upright?
5. If you tie a heavy spring to a light spring and send a wave pulse down the heavy
spring, some of the wave will be reflected when the wave passes into the lighter
spring. Will the reflected pulse be upright or inverted?

Answers
1.

i=60 r=60

2. Since the angle of incidence and the angle of reflection must be the same, the
light will reflect at an angle of 30° to normal.
3. The angle of incidence is ½ of 90, or 45°, since the normal line occurs midway
between the incident and reflected rays, and the angle of incidence is the
measure between the incident ray and the normal.
4. When a water wave is reflected, the whole wave will be reflected. Therefore, the
wave will be upside down.
5. The reflected pulse will be upright because the wave travels from the denser
medium (heavy spring) to the lighter medium.

12.5 Refraction of Mechanical Waves

Practice

Questions

1. What property causes the light to bend around the test tube?

5
2. To reduce the "ghost" effect, would you make the diameter of the test tube smaller or
larger?

Answers

1. Refraction causes the light to bend

2. A smaller test tube would be less detectable.

Review

Questions

1. A laser beam passes through water and enters a glass block at an angle. The
ratio of the speed of the wave in glass to the speed in water is 0.866. If the angle
of incidence to the interface is , what is the angle of refraction?
2. A ray of light is traveling from air into glass at an angle of to the normal
line. The speed of the light in air is and in glass the speed
8
drops to 2.00 x10 m/s. What is the angle of refraction?
3. Which of the following change when a water wave moves across a boundary at
an angle between deep water and shallow water?
a. frequency
b. wavelength
c. speed
d. wave direction
e. period
4. Which of the following change when a water wave moves across a boundary
exactly along the media interface between deep water and shallow water?
a. frequency
b. wavelength
c. speed
d. wave direction
e. period
5. The speed of sound is 340 m/s. A particular sound wave has a frequency of 320.
Hz.
a. What is the wavelength of this sound in air?
b. If this sound refracts into water where the speed of sound is 4 times faster,
what will be the new wavelength?
c. What will be the new frequency?
6. When a light ray passes from air into diamond, the angle of incidence is of
and the angle of refraction is . If the speed of light in air
is , what is the speed of light in diamond?

Answers

6
 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑟 𝑣𝑟
1. Using = = 0.866 ∶ 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑟 = 0.866 ∗ 0.866 ∶ 𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑟 = 0.75 ∶ 𝜃 = sin−1 75 = 48.58
𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑖 𝑣𝑖
The angle of .
𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑟 𝑣𝑟 2×108
2. Using = = 3×108 = 0.667 ∶ 𝜃𝑟 = sin−1(0.667 ∗ 𝑠𝑖𝑛30) = The angle of
𝑠𝑖𝑛𝜃𝑖 𝑣𝑖

3. b, c, d. The frequency and period do not change during refraction.

4. b, c. Since all portions of the wave cross the boundary at the same time, the wave
direction will not change. Like in (3), the frequency and period are constant.
𝑚
(340 )
𝑠
5. a. The wavelength is 320𝐻𝑧 = 1.06 m.
b. The new wavelength in water is 4*1.06 = 4.24 m.
c. The frequency does not change; it is still 320 Hz.
sin(16.7) 𝑥
6. Using sin 45 = 8𝑚
∶ The speed of light in the diamond is 1.2 x 108 m/s.
3.00×10
𝑠