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Basic experiments with ripple tanks
Introducing the ripple tank, a powerful tool that can help students visualize wave behaviour in general. By pointing out that wavefronts are perpendicular to the direction of motion of the wave, you can link ripple tank experiments to experiments in optics, where rays show the direction of motion of the light.
This is a set of experiments on wave reflections. Students are introduced to ripple tanks and gain confidence in using them, by doing some simple experiments with pulses.
Experiments
Simple circular pulses in ripple tanks [2]
Reflection of a straight pulse by a barrier [4]
Reflection of a circular pulse by a barrier [5]
Reflection at a parabolic barrier [6]
Reflection of ripples at a circular barrier [7]
Vibrator to generate continuous waves [9]
[10]