WAVES
Links checked 24th June 2008
LIGHT
For heat radiation, use this nice applet of an electromagnetic wave. And this one shows the emission, transmission, and detection, of the waves very nicely.
Move the lamp around, and see how the size of the shadow
changes. (Crocodile clips does this very well)
This is an excellent pinhole camera applet. You can move the object closer or further; you can click on bits of the object to see the light travel through the pinhole; you can increase the size of the pinhole...
This is a brilliant simulation of reflection and refraction of rays and waves from Mr.Fendt. It uses Huygens' construction to show the formation of the wavefronts, in the most simple and elegant way. Fendt for the Nobel prize!
Refraction of light is a nice simple one, with ability to drag the incident ray to a new angle, and to read off the refracted angle for a decent variety of media.
Refraction through a prism, with controllable colour, is well done here. (A Gizmo, which you can only use once...!)
And, by the way, this refraction of light one by someone else is really excellent - it is so simple, but it just shows what matters.
A movable light source at the bottom of a pond shows good internal reflection.
SOUND
Here is a complete lecture on Sound and Music.
Refraction of light is a nice simple one, with ability to drag the incident ray to a new angle, and to read off the refracted angle for a decent variety of media.
An example of the importance of diffraction is resolving two stars which are a very small angle apart (look at end of p.6 and start of p.7 for diagrams).
This is a very simple one where you can scan through the electromagnetic spectrum, it gives you the wavelength and frequency, the type, and a little image with some information on how it is produced and a typical use...
The structure of the Earth
This animation shows recent earthquakes, making clear the boundaries of the plates.
Simple animations of types of Fault, and of types of wave produced
S P waves on surface and in Earth, a good one!
Satellite laser logging of plate movement at NASA
Images of the structure of the Earth, and good information on each layer