S6.1 Introduction: what and why
- Oscillations are repetitive, often regular, changes of some ’thing’
- Waves are evident in the behaviour of many individual oscillating ’things’.
These phenomena are widespread in science and technology.
Examples of ’oscillations’
Examples of ’waves’
- They are characterised by an enormous range of time and length scales.
- But this diversity is underpinned by a single set of tools (concepts and supporting mathematics)
- The tools ’empower’ (give us generalisable understanding) and will be central here.
- We focus on ‘oscillations’; the extension to ‘waves’ follows in Physics 1B
Learning Resources
![]() | HRW 15.1-15.2 |