General Physics I

2023 Fall Semester for Physics Major

pplication to the 2D rotation about a Fixed Axis
Lecture 28: Superposition of Wave Functions

Daw-Wei Wang
Physics Department NTHU
(I) General Solutions of 1D Wave Equation
1. The general 1D wave equation is given by 4. For convenience, we could define
Here 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑡) is the physical
quantity to be measured for
different waves

2. Since there are two variables, (𝑥, 𝑡), it is more

instructive to first try a particular solution with
separation of variables, i.e.
So that we have 5. Since we could the wave equation is linear in the
real 𝑓(𝑥, 𝑡), the most general solution can be a linear
combination of SHO motion in space and time:

Function of 𝑥 only Function of 𝑡 only

3. Therefore, we could conclude that the only possible way
Here we allow the wave
to make this equation possible is that both left and right number 𝑘 to be positive and
are equal to a constant of 𝒙 and 𝒕 !! negative.
(II) Direction of Travelling Wave
1. We therefore find that, different from our previous
equation of motion, for example, in a
1D SHO, the general solution of wave equation is
composed by different sinusoidal solutions.
2. If including 𝑘 > 0 term only and let

We can generally
Here is the phase for 𝑘 component, and we define the sign of
redefine in the last equation. the wave number 𝑘
3. We therefore find that for any real travelling wave to be the direction of
wave propagation.
function, 𝒇(𝒙 − 𝒗𝒕), it can be written as a
composition of many sinusoidal function with
4. We could also derive result for k < 0, i.e.
different wave number, 𝒌 = 𝝎/𝒗.
(III) Wave Direction and Wave Number Vector in 2D and 3D
1. For 2D wave equation,
We could also apply separation of variables by assuming
So that we have
Let each term divided by
2. Following previous approach, we could show that
3. Therefore, we find that in general, the wave
number, 𝐤 = (𝑘 , 𝑘 , 𝑘 ), can define the direction of
wave propagation, while its magnitude is confined
to be
The nature of wave equation must
allow the superposition of different
plane wave (𝑒 (𝒌 𝒓 ) ), leading to
many interesting phenomena of waves.
True for 3D wave, if only we
define 𝐤 = (𝑘 , 𝑘 , 𝑘 )
https://qsstudy.com/spherical-wave-fronts/
(IV) Wave Form for the Superposition of Waves

A special case is for the standing waveFor 2D

wave equation,
(V) Harmonics of Instruments These harmonics are the “nature
frequencies” of an instrument, which
could get more enhanced when driven
by an external force (forced SHO)