Wave Interference

Topics

• Waves
• Sound

Description

Make waves with a dripping faucet, audio speaker, or laser! Add a second source or a pair of slits to create an interference pattern.

Sample Learning Goals

• You can watch water, sound, and light waves move and see how they are related. All can be represented by a sinewave.
• What does this sinewave represent for these three different phenomena?
• Use multiple sources with different spacing and see a changing interference pattern.
• Find points of constructive and destructive interference by eye, and by using the detectors.
• Put up a barrier to see how the waves move through one or two slits. What sort of pattern do the slits create? How can you change this pattern?
• In the light panel, predict the locations of the fringes that appear on the screen using d sin(θ) = mλ. Use the tape measure to verify your predictions.