Particles or Waves
Is light a particle or a wave?
Particle collision
What happens when particles meet head on?
Choices...
- stopping dead in their tracks.
- bouncing back away from each other.
- moving through each other.
Wave pulses meeting
- stopping dead in their tracks.
- bouncing back away from each other.
- moving through each other.
Waves appear to move through each other
Wave addition - INTERFERENCE
It seems that two pulses can pass through each other. Where they meet, the resulting shape is like adding the height of one pulse plus the height of the other pulse, like this...
What will the height of the pulse be when these two pulses meet each other?
Check out this simulation of what's supposed to
happen:
Here's a very short movie of pulses on a slinky with two pulses on the same side of the slinky moving toward each other.
Sequential frames
Sequential frames from this movie show two pulses advancing towards each other, turning into a "higher" pulse where they meet, and then moving away from each other...
At
each moment in time, a moving boat disturbs the water, sending a wave pulse
out to the left, and another to the right. This is called the boat's wake.
If two boats go beside each other, what should be the height where the two wakes run into each other? Take a look: two-boat wake-surfing video. (FF to about halfway in to the video...)
Image credits
