Group5_6_ch11

Julia Sellman, Maddy Weinfeld, Maggie Leffler

Objective: What is the relationship between Frequency and the tension of transverse waves traveling in a stretched string? What is the relationship between frequency and harmonic number? What is the relationship between frequency and wavelength?

Hypothesis: When the tension is increasing, the frequency will also increase. When the harmonic number increases, the frequency will also increase. When the frequency increases, the wavelength will decrease.

Materials and Procedure: We attached a string to the electrically-driven oscillator and attached masses to the end using the weight holder and a selection of weights. The pulley and table clamp assembly kept the electrically-driven oscillator stable and attached to the table. We turned the dial on the oscillator in order to see the wavelength and measure the frequency at which it. 

Data and Calculations:  Discussion Questions:

1. Calculate the tension T that would be required to produce the n = 1 standing wave for the red braided string. 2. What would be the effect if the string stretched significantly as the tension increased? How would that have affected the data? If the string stretched significantly as the tension increased, then the velocity would have also increased. This is because the length of the string having been stretched, obviously increased and therefore, raised the velocity.

3. What is the effect of the type of string on the amount of hanging mass needed to create a set number of nodes? Explain this. There would probably be an increased number of nodes because there would have been an increased mass.

4. What is the effect of changing frequency on the number of nodes? Changing the frequency would directly affect the number of nodes. When frequency increases, that means that the number of nodes are increasing. If the frequency decreases, the number of nodes decreases.

5. What factors affect the number of nodes in a standing wave? Factors which affect the number of nodes in a standing wave include frequency, string length, tension, elasticity, and mass per unit length.

Conclusion: This lab had three objectives and we were able to successfully complete them all. First, we found the relationship between tension and frequency of a transverse wave. Our hypothesis was that as tension increased, so would frequency. We found this to be true and found that the relationship was a power function, and the frequency increased by a power of 1/2. Next, we found the relationship between frequency and harmonic number. Our hypothesis was that as harmonic number increased, so would frequency. Again, we found this to be true and we found a linear relationship between the two. The last objective was to find the relationship between frequency and wave length. Our hypothesis was that as wave length increases, frequency will decrease. We found this to be true as well and there was a power fit. We found that this data was very precise and there was very little error. The error that did exist however could have come from a few sources. For the first part, it was hard to keep the hanging masses completely still and their movement could have thrown off our frequencies. The frequencies we read also could have been slightly off from the actual frequency where maximum altitude exists. To fix both of these errors, we would have needed to redo the lab with more time so that we could be more precise with making sure the weights stayed still and tried each and every frequency. This lab helped us with our real life understanding of waves and their frequency and helped us visualize the different relationships within waves.