Teams score points by telling the audience about things that make their topic special. Round 1: Interference and Diffraction Team Light is the first to hit the buzzer. “Light is a wave!” shouts their captain. Looking around proudly, the captain adds, “This means we can experience interference or diffraction.” “Correct!” says the referee, giving Team Light a point. She then asks, “Could you please explain what those words mean?” Team Light replies, “Light travels as a wave, with high peaks and low troughs just like waves on the ocean. WavelengthThis is the distance between two following peaks (or troughs) in a wave.
It is typically used as unit of scale to decide how big are the objects compared to the wave. While for visible light the wavelength is very small, smaller than the smallest hair, the wavelength of the sounds we can hear varies between about 1.7 cm and 1.7 meters. It is worth noting that each primary color has Spain phone number list its own wavelength. More on this on the article “A Science Busker Guide to sound”. is the distance between one peak in the wave and the next. InterferenceThis is a phenomenon that happens when two waves of the same frequency overlap in the same location. In a nutshell, if their peaks and troughs are in the same location at the same time, they add and a louder sound is obtained. Otherwise, they cancel out. More on interference in the article.
A Science Busker Guide to sound” and on BBC Bitesize. happens when two waves meet in the same space and affect each other. A scientist named Thomas Young demonstrated this really well in a famous experiment called the “two slit experimentImagine a source of red light (on the left) in front of a screen with two vertical slits (in the middle). Light passes through the slits and we observe it on a screen on the right. When a single slit is open, on the screen appears a spot of light. When the two slits are both open, on the screen appears a pattern of lines, alternating dark and light. More can be found on Britannica Kids.