MISCONCEPTIONS AND PROPER CONCEPTIONS ABOUT WAVES

MISCONCEPTIONS AND PROPER CONCEPTIONS
MISCONCEPTIONS	PROPER CONCEPTIONS
Waves transport matter.	Waves transport energy; not matter.
There must be a medium for a wave to travel through.	Only mechanical waves need a medium in order to propagate. Electromagnetic waves do not need a medium in order to propagate.
Waves do not have energy.	Waves are an energy transport phenomena that transport energy along a medium without transporting matter.
All waves travel the same way.	Based on the direction of movement the individual particles of the medium travel relative to the direction in which a wave travels, a wave can be categorized in to one of three wave groups: longitudinal, transverse or surface.
Frequency is connected to loudness for all amplitudes.	Frequency refers to how often the particles of a medium vibrate within a unit of time when a wave passes through the medium. The loudness of a sound relates to the amplitude of the wave.
Big waves travel faster than small waves in the same direction.	All electromagnetic waves in vacuum travel at the speed of light. The speed of all mechanical waves depends of the mechanical properties of the medium.
Different colors of light are different types of waves.	Light is a form of electromagnetic wave. Colors are the result of the differences in energy of electromagnetic waves that fall in the visual part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
Pitch is related to intensity.	The pitch of a sound is related to its frequency.
Light is a particle.	Light is a form of electromagnetic radiation. It shows both wave and particle properties depending on the type of experimental conditions under which light is being studied.
Light is a mixture of particles and waves.	Light exhibit characteristics of both waves and particles.
Light waves and radio waves are not the same thing.	Radio waves are light waves, or electromagnetic waves. Visible light waves have a shorter wavelength than radio waves.
The speed of light never changes.	The speed of light changes when light enters a denser medium by a factor called the index of refraction of the medium.
The addition of all colors of light yields black.	The addition of all colors of light produces a white light. Adding different colors of paint might produce a dark color of paint.
In refraction, the frequency of light changes.	When a ray of light is refracted its frequency stays the same but the wavelength and velocity will change. Refraction results from the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its velocity as it moves from one medium to another with a different index or refraction.
Refraction is the bending of waves.	Waves do not bend. Refraction results from the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its velocity as it moves from one medium with an index of refraction to another medium with a different index of refraction.
A mass moving at the speed of light becomes energy.	The mass of an object increases with velocity. The relativistic expression is 221cvmmo−=
Light is one or the other – a particle or a wave – only.	Light is an electromagnetic wave. Depending on the experiment it may show either properties of a wave or properties of a particle.
Particles cannot have wave properties.	The wave-particle duality of objects is always present. The wavelength of an object is inversely proportional to its momentum.
The position of a particle always can be exactly known.	The position of a particle can be know only up to a limit given by the Uncertainty Principle ΔxΔp≥h
Photons of higher frequency are bigger than photons of lower frequency.	A photon is the corpuscular description of light. A photon does not have mass or volume. Photons have momentum and energy only. Higher frequency photons will have more energy and a shorter wavelength than photons of lower frequency.

Source:

Georgia Department of Education
Kathy Cox, State Superintendent of Schools
Physics – Traditional – Waves

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