Semester 1 Physics Final Study Guide
Noise cancelling headphones use _ to reduce or eliminate sound.
destructive interference
Noise-canceling earphones are an example of
destructive interference
The period of an ocean wave is 10 seconds. What is the wave's frequency?
0.10 Hz
A weight on the end of a spring bobs up and down one complete cycle every 4.0 seconds. Its frequency is
0.25 hertz
A 680-Hz sound wave travels at 340 m/s in air, with a wavelength of
0.5 m.
A certain ocean wave has a frequency of 0.07 hertz and a wavelength of 10 meters. What is the wave's speed?
0.70 m/s
A wave has two crests and two troughs each second. If the wave travels an average distance of 8 meters in 4 seconds, its wavelength is
1 m.
An explosion occurs 340 m away. Given that sound travels at 340 m/s, the time the sound takes to reach you is
1 s.
Compared to a sound of 10 decibels, a sound of 50 decibels has
10,000 times the intensity
Suppose you sound a tuning fork at the same time you hit a 1053-Hz note on the piano and hear 3 beats/sec. You tighten the piano string very slightly and now hear 4 beats/sec. What is the frequency of the tuning fork?
1050 Hz
A tuning fork of frequency 300 Hz will resonate if a sound wave incident on it has a frequency of
150 Hz
A leaf on a pond oscillates up and down two complete cycles each second as a water wave passes. What is the wave's frequency?
2 hertz
A wave travels an average distance of 6 meters in 3 seconds. What is the wave's velocity?
2 m/s
The speed of light is approximately
300,000,000 m/s
Two waves arrive at the same place at the same time exactly in step with each other. Each wave has an amplitude of 2.5 m. The resulting wave has an amplitude of
5 m.
A skipper on a boat notices wave crests passing the anchor chain every 6.0 seconds. The skipper estimates the distance between crests at 30.0 m. What is the speed of the water waves?
5 m/s
A cork floating in a pool oscillates up and down three complete cycles in 1 second as a wave passes by. The wave's wavelength is 2 meters. What is the wave's speed?
6 m/s
Beats are produced when two tuning forks, one of frequency 240 Hz and the other of frequency 248 Hz, are sounded together. The frequency of the beats is
8 Hz
The amplitude of a particular wave is 4.0 m. The top-to-bottom distance of the disturbance is
8 m.
Which of these electromagnetic waves has the shortest wavelength? Ultraviolet waves, Infrared waves, Radio waves, X-rays, Visible Light waves
X-rays
During a lunar eclipse
Earth is between the sun and the moon
Solar eclipses are seen less commonly than lunar eclipses because
Earth's shadow on the moon is larger than the moon's shadow on Earth.
As the sound of a car's horn passes and recedes from you, the pitch of the horn seems to
decrease
Photons are massless, bundles of concentrated electromagnetic energy, the particle theory of light's dual nature. True or false.
True
Hertz
Unit of frequency
Sound waves cannot travel in
a vacuum
Resonance occurs when
an object is forced to vibrate at its natural frequency
Where can you touch a standing wave on a rope without disturbing the wave?
at a node
The Doppler effect occurs when a source of sound moves
away from you and towards you
The main difference between a radio wave and a sound wave is its
basic nature
When two sounds of slightly different frequencies are sounded together, the regular fluctuation in the loudness of the combined sounds is called
beats
Electromagnetic waves
can travel through a vacuum and don't need a medium to travel through
The only things humans can see are things that
emit light or reflect light
A thin beam of light is called an X-ray. True or False.
false
Electromagnetic heat waves are called ultraviolet waves.
false
Excited atoms never return to their normal state. True or false.
false
Infrared waves are responsible for sunburn.
false
Materials that allow light to pass through them in straight lines are called opaque materials. True or False?
false
The color of an opaque object is the color the object absorbs. True or false.
false
The complementary color of cyan light is green light. True or false.
false
The number of times a wave vibrates each second is its period. True or false.
false
The time for a complete back and forth swing of a pendulum is its frequency. True or false.
false
Ultrasonic sound waves have frequencies below 20Hz. True or false.
false
When the high part of one wave fills in the low part of another wave, constructive interference occurs. True or false.
false
The unit of measure for the period of a wave is hertz. True or false.
false.
If the sun were to disappear right now, we wouldn't know about it for 8 minutes because it takes 8 minutes
for light to travel from the sun to Earth
Beats can be heard when two tuning forks
have almost the same frequency and are sounded together
Does sound travel faster in water, ice, or steam?
ice
Standing waves can be set up
in organ pipes, by blowing across the top of a soda bottle, on strings of musical instruments
Heat lamps give off mostly
infrared waves
The phenomenon of beats results from sound
interference
When two or more waves are at the same place at the same time, the resulting effect is called
interference
Compared to the wavelength of ultraviolet waves, the wavelength of infrared waves is
longer
A sound wave is a
longitudinal wave
Sound is an example of a
longitudinal wave
Electromagnetic waves are
longitudinal waves
The electromagnetic waves used to cook food are
microwaves
When an object composed of an elastic material is disturbed, it vibrates at its own special set of frequencies called its
natural frequency
Which has a faster speed? Radio waves, microwaves, visible light
none, they all have the same speed
During a single period, the distance traveled by a wave is
one wavelength
Light does not pass through what kind of materials?
opaque
The time needed for a wave to make one complete cycle is its
period
Sound waves in air are a series of
periodic disturbances, periodic condensations and rarefactions, high- and low-pressure regions
The word we use to describe our subjective impression of frequency is
pitch
A singer shattering crystal glass with her voice is a demonstration of
resonance
The shadow produced by an object held close to a piece of paper in sunlight will be
sharp
A child swings back and forth on a playground swing. If the child stands rather than sits, the time for a back and forth swing is
shortened
You dip your finger repeatedly into water and make waves. If you dip your finger more frequently, the wavelength of the waves
shortens
Compared to its speed in air, the speed of light in water is
slower
Compared to the speed of light, sound travels
slower
Sounds travel most quickly through
solids
The three media sound travels through are
solids, liquids, and gasses
Which of the following is NOT an electromagnetic wave? Visible Light, Radio, Sound, Infrared, X-Ray
sound
Which of the following are fundamentally different from the others? Sound waves, X-rays, Gamma rays, Light waves, Radio waves
sound waves
Which of the following would be most likely to transmit sound with the highest speed?
steel in a bridge
Compared to the threshold of hearing, a sound level of 10 decibels is
ten times more intense
During a solar eclipse
the moon is between the sun and the Earth
The Doppler effect is the change in observed frequency due to
the motion of the source or the observer
Compared to the velocity of radio waves, the velocity of visible light waves is
the same
The primary purpose of polarized sunglasses is
to block glare from reflections
A wave created by shaking a rope up and down is called a
transverse wave
A wave moving perpendicular to the direction its energy moves is called a
transverse wave
Electromagnetic waves are
transverse waves
A total shadow is called an umbra. True or False.
true
Energy emitted by vibrating electric charges is carried by electromagnetic waves. True or False?
true
Light sometimes acts as a wave and sometimes as a particle. True or False
true
Light that reflects at glancing angles from nonmetallic surfaces, such as glsss, water, or roads, vibrates mainly in the plane of the reflecting surface. True or false.
true
Nodes in a standing wave normally remain stationary. True or false.
true
Sound cannot travel through a vacuum. True or false.
true
Sound waves are examples of longitudinal waves. True or false.
true
The distance light travels in one year is called a light-year.
true
Typical glass is transparent to visible light, but not to
ultraviolet and infrared
The electromagnetic waves used to help plants grow in greenhouses are
ultraviolet waves
The source of all electromagnetic waves is
vibrating charges
Sound waves are produced by
vibrating objects
The source of all wave motion is a
vibration
All sound waves are created by
vibrations
Sound travels that fastest in air if the air is
warm
The distance between successive identical parts of a wave is called its
wavelength
The main difference between a radio wave and a light wave is its
wavelength
