Chapter 12
Examining the Physics of Waves and Sound
In This Chapter
Tackling harmonic motion
Describing waves and their properties
Bouncing waves off walls
Waves and harmonic motion (such as a swinging pendulum) play an important role in biophysics. Waves and particles are how objects interact with biological systems. For example, suppose Charles wants to torture you; he can either throw water balloons (particles) at you or he can sing (waves). Many aspects of biophysics depend on the properties of waves. You need to understand waves before you can understand hearing, sound, ultrasound imaging, or echolocation.
So what is a wave? A wave is a physical disturbance that transfers energy through space, whereas harmonic motion is a motion that repeats itself over some finite period. The definition for harmonic motion seems easy to grasp, but the wave definition doesn’t seem that helpful; however, it will make sense if you read on.
This chapter explains what waves and harmonic motion are and some of their properties. This chapter also looks at what happens to a wave when it hits a boundary. Understanding this information can help you grasp how sound travels through walls (and keeps ...
Get Biophysics For Dummies now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.
