Transverse waves on a rope and the wave equation
Mathematica movies of traveling waves
Notes
on Traveling Waves as Solutions to the Wave
Equation
In this PowerPoint file (wave1.ppt) I derive the equation for a transverse pulse in a string. This file also shows why a traveling wave satisfies the wave equation.
Mathematica
and Traveling Waves
You can make movies of traveling waves using Mathematica. The following Mathematica notebook: Travel.math.nb has an example of how to do this. To play the movie scroll down towards the end of the file and select the frames of the movie by clicking in the righmost bracket then press: Command-Y to plat the movie. I also created this QuickTIme movie using Mathematica: Travel.math.movie
