Waves and More Waves

Physics D, F and Honors Physics continued on with light and refraction today by looking at lenses. We completed light and reflection last week and, after Monday's exam we turned towards refraction, the change of path of light due to traveling a different speed in a new medium. Yesterday, we defined refraction, discussed when refraction did and did not occur, defined the index of refraction and discussed how the values could be used to assess properties of a substance in terms of the behavior of light and used Snell's Law to evaluate the exact path of travel of light in a material. Today, we took on lenses and began to discuss properties of lenses, contrast diverging and converging lenses and take a look at ray diagrams for lenses. Tomorrow, we'll continue on this with this and get some practice with the math involving lenses.

Intro Physics continues with waves and wave behaviors and, today and yesterday, worked on lab work concerning wave features, wave reflection and interference. We used springs to model transverse and longitudinal waves, set up standing waves in a rope and used a microphone and the Vernier system to examine sound waves and the phenomenon of beats. Tomorrow, we'll discuss these labs and continue beyond reflection to other wave behaviors, such as refraction and diffraction.