All AP Physics 1 Resources
Example Questions
Example Question #21 : Electricity And Waves
Samira is standing on the corner of Market St. and 20th Ave. A rock band on the back of a flatbed truck drives past her. At the moment she is even with Samira, the lead singer yells at a frequency of . If the truck drives away at a constant velocity of , what is the apparent frequency of the singer to Samira?
To solve this problem we can examine the doppler effect equation:
where is the velocity of the observer, is the velocity of sound through air, vs is the velocity of the source of the sound, is the original frequency of the source, and is the source's apparent frequency to the observer. Because we are dealing with a stationary observer and a source in motion, we will add the velocity of the source to the velocity of sound. We can then plug in the values given by the problem into the above equation:
Example Question #8 : Doppler Effect
An astronomer on Earth looks at a distant star and analyzes the spectral lines for hydrogen from that star. They find the wavelength of hydrogen from the star to be , but the astronomer knows that the wavelength of hydrogen on Earth is . How fast is the distant star moving away from the Earth?
The first thing we need to do is convert the wavelengths given to a usable frequency using:
Where is frequency, is the speed of light , and is the wavelength. Once we have the frequencies, we can find the velocity of the star in regards to Earth:
Plug in known values into the Doppler equation. We may assume the Earth is stationary relative to the star.
Simplify.
Example Question #1 : Wavelength And Amplitude
A severe storm has moved into your area and the weather sirens have begun to go off. The frequency of the siren ranges between 200 hz and 2,000 hz. What is the range of wavelength of the emitted sound waves?
We can use the following equation to solve this problem:
where
v = velocity of sound
f = frequency
= wavelength
Rearranging for wavelength, we get:
Plugging in our values, we get:
You do not need to have this equation memorized in order to solve this problem. A very useful skill in physics is being able to solve problems based solely off your units.
We need to have an answer with the units of meters. We are given units of m/s and 1/s. How can we go from these to meters? Simply divide the value with the units of m/s by the value with the units of 1/s. This gives you an answer with the units of meters. Once written out, this is the final equation written above. No need to spend extra time memorizing the equation!
Example Question #31 : Waves
What is the wavelength of a radio station that broadcasts at 92.9MHz?
We need to know the speed of light, which is:
We can use this to calculate the wavelength of any electromagnetic wave if we know the frequency, using the equation:
If you're unsure of how to come about this equation, you should be able to derive it by looking at your units. Use our given values to solve for the wavelength:
Example Question #31 : Waves
A wave with a speed of has a frequency of 30Hz. What is the wavelength?
Since the wave has a frequency of 30Hz, we know it completes 30 cycles every second. As its velocity is , we also know that in that second, the wave has moved 10m. Dividing the total distance, 10m, by the number of cycles, 30, we get the number of meters travelled in each cycle which is the wavelength:
Example Question #32 : Electricity And Waves
Given the speed of a wave as and the wavelength of 0.2m, find its frequency.
Speed is frequency times wavelength. So the frequency must be speed divided by wavelength. In this case:
This makes sense as in one second, the wave will have travelled 15m. Each meter is 5 cycles, so over the distance the wave has travelled in one second, it has completed cycles.
Example Question #33 : Electricity And Waves
An equation of a wave is given by the following formula:
Here, is given in meters and is given in seconds. Determine the period of the wave in seconds.
A trigonometric equation given by the following formula
Here, is given in meters, is given in Hertz, is given in seconds, and is given in meters. The period is given by:
In our case:
Example Question #32 : Waves
The music we listen to on the radio is transmitted in the form of radio waves. You might have seen that a radio station on FM is broadcasted in , which is .
What is the wavelength of a radio wave if it's being transmitted on a frequency of ?
Radio waves travel at the speed of light . The relationship between wavelength, frequency, and wave speed is
, where is the wavelength and is the frequency.
In our case,
.
Therefore,
Example Question #1181 : Ap Physics 1
An original signal's frequency is halved by a resistor, and no other part of the wave is effected. Determine the change in the amplitude of the signal.
The amplitude is quadrupled
The amplitude is halved
The amplitude is unchanged
The amplitude is doubled
The amplitude is unchanged
Amplitude refers to the strength of a wave and has no relation to its frequency. Frequency would only affect the period and phase, but not the amplitude.
Example Question #1 : Velocity, Frequency, And Wavelength
What is the wavelength of a wave if its velocity is ?
The relationship between wavelength and velocity is given by the equation;
The question gives us the velocity of the wave and its frequency. Using these values, we can solve for the wavelength.
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