investigate how and why the depth of water affects wave speed

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Physics Coursework - Part 1 - Plan - Josh Schneider -U4E

Physics Coursework: Planning Section

Aim

The aim for this experiment is to investigate how and why the depth of water affects wave speed, wavelength, wave height and also the direction the wave travels in.

Prediction

After thoroughly researching this topic and looking at some preliminary results used in my plan. I can predict that the deeper the water in the ocean or container, the faster the waves will travel. Therefore if I was to halve the amount of water in the plastic container, the wave speed should halve as well and be much slower. I also predict that as the water is refracted from one end of the container, it will return to the other side of the container parallel.

Hypothesis

        A wave is a vibration or an oscillation, which is transmitted through a material or even space, a wave is shown by a regular pattern of disturbance. All waves transfer energy from one point to another without any transfer of particles of matter. There are two types of waves, firstly longitudinal waves, longitudinal waves move in and out (parallel) so when demonstrated with a slinky spring, your hand movement would be moving forwards and backwards as shown below.

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An example of a longitudinal wave is a sound wave. So for example when we listen to music, the speakers send out longitudinal waves through the air which then reach our ears so we can hear the playing music.

The second type of wave is a transverse wave. Transverse waves move up and down so when demonstrated with a slinky spring, your hand movement would obviously be moving up and down as shown below.

Examples of transverse waves are light waves and also water waves, which are the waves that we are investigating ...

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