Pretest: Waves

Name: ______________________

Formulas:
1

= |1 2 |

(+ )

= ( )

= 343
=
1

=
1

= 2
= 2.99 108
=
1 sin 1 = 2 sin 2

Questions: Each is worth five points, please answer as many as possible to the best of your ability.
1) A hummingbird beats its wings up and down with a frequency of 80.0 Hz. What is the period of the
hummingbirds flaps?

2) Many amusement parks feature a ride which a giant ship swings back and forth. If the period of the
ship is 8.00 seconds, what is the frequency of the swinging ship?

3) Tegan, a trapeze artist, swings from a 2.5 meter long trapeze high above the three ring circus. What is
Tegans period as she swings?

4) In California, Clay is surfing on a wave that propels him forward toward the beach with a speed of 5.0
m/s. The wave crests are each 20 meters apart. What is the frequency of the water wave?

5) What is the period of the wave Clay is riding in question number 4?

6) An orchestra tunes up for a big concert by playing an A, which resounds with a fundamental
frequency of 440 Hz. Find the first and second overtones of this note.

7) Zeke plucks a C on his guitar string, which vibrates with a fundamental frequency of 261 Hz. The wave
travels down the string with a speed of 400 m/s. What is the length of the guitar string?

8) Would Zeke need longer or shorter strings to play the fundamental frequency for higher notes?

9) In his physics lab, Sanjiv finds that he can take a long glass tube and fill it with water, using the air
space at the top of to simulate a pipe closed at one end. If Sanjiv holds a tuning fork, which vibrates with
a fundamental frequency of 440 Hz, over the mouth of the pipe, how long is the air column if it vibrates
at the same frequency?

10) A piano tuner is tuning Ms. Erbaughs piano when he discovers that the G above middle C is vibrating
with a higher frequency than his G tuning fork, which vibrates at 392 Hz. He plays the piano key and the
tuning fork at the same time and hears a beat frequency of 2 Hz. What is the frequency of the G on Ms.
Erbaughs piano?

11) Sitting on the beach at Coney Island one afternoon, Sunny find herself beneath the flight path of the
airplanes leaving Kennedy Airport. What frequency will Sunny hear as a jet, whose engines emit sound
at a frequency of 1000 Hz, flies toward her at a speed of 100 m/s?

12) How long does it take for light from the sun to reach Earth if the sun is 1.5x1011 meters away?

13) Microwave ovens emit waves of about 2450 MHz. What is the wavelength of this light?

14) Sitting in her parlor one night, Gertie sees the reflection of her cat, Whiskers, in the living room
window. If the image of Whiskers makes an angle of 40 degrees with the normal, at what angle does
Gertie see him reflected?

15) Wendy the witch is polishing her crystal ball. It is so shiny that she can see her reflection when she
gazes into the ball from a distance of 15 cm. What is the focal length of Wendys crystal ball if she can
see her reflection 4 cm behind the surface?

16) Is the image that Wendy sees real or virtual? How do you know?

17) Hickory, a watch maker, is interested in an old timepiece that has been brought in for a cleaning. If
light travels at 1.9 x 108 m/s in the crystal, what is the crystals index of refraction?

18) While fishing out on the lake one summer afternoon, Amy spots a large trout just below the surface
of the water at an angle of 60 degrees to the vertical, and she tries to scoop it out of the water with her
net. At what angle should Amy aim for the wish?