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Practice Questions

This document contains practice questions about waves and sound. Question 1 calculates the mean length and uncertainty of a vibrating wire at 512Hz. Question 2 calculates the speed of sound in water and the depth of the water based on the time it takes sound to reflect off the sea bed. Question 3 distinguishes between compressional waves that cannot be polarized and transverse waves that can. Question 4 identifies transverse waves and light waves. Question 5 lists additional questions.

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Henry Desmond
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65 views2 pages

Practice Questions

This document contains practice questions about waves and sound. Question 1 calculates the mean length and uncertainty of a vibrating wire at 512Hz. Question 2 calculates the speed of sound in water and the depth of the water based on the time it takes sound to reflect off the sea bed. Question 3 distinguishes between compressional waves that cannot be polarized and transverse waves that can. Question 4 identifies transverse waves and light waves. Question 5 lists additional questions.

Uploaded by

Henry Desmond
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Practice questions

1a.
i) Calculate the mean length L at 512Hz.
425+407+396+415+402=2045 / 5 = 409Hz
ii) Estimate the uncertainty in this length measurement
Uncertainty (%) =

x 100
Uncertainty (%) =

x 100 = 3.55%
1b. the student thought that the measurements showed that the frequency of sound f
emitted by the wire is inversely proportional to the length L of the vibrating section.
i) Discuss whether or not the measurements support this hypothesis.
- This hypothesis is correct because when the f was doubled from 256Hz to
512Hz the L of the vibrating section halved from 820mm to 409mm.
2a. calculate the speed of the sound through the water.

V = 29000 x 0.053 = 1537 m/s
2b. the sound is reflected from the sea bed and is received back at the ship 0.23s after it is
transmitted. Calculate the depth of the water
1537 x 0.23 8130.73/2 = 4065.365 m/s
3a
i) Made up of compressions and decompressions and cannot be polarised
ii) Made up of peaks and troughs at 90C to the direction of travel and can be
polarised.
3b the light changes from maximum to minimum then to maximum, to minimum and back
to maximum.
4a Transverse waves
4b Light waves
4c some waves cannot be polarised because they only go in one direction.
5a
5b see sheet
5c -

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