14.7 Standing Waves

Standing Waves

Imagine that 2 waves are confined in a close space, causing them to interfere with each other. During the interference, there will be lots of destructive interference. The wave that is left is the wave that is left standing, hence the name the standing wave. These waves don't have any net velocity but the individual points on the wave will oscillate.

Standing waves will have nodes and antinodes. Nodes are places on the standing wave where there is no motion, and the wave is fixed at that point. Antinodes are the opposite of nodes, where these points on the wave will have the maximum motion and will hence be where the amplitude of the wave is found.

The frequency of a standing wave is how many times the wave goes up and down per second. The wave speed of the standing wave is found with the equation ${v=\lambda f}$. More discussion on how to find the wavelength of a standing wave will be in the next section.