Visualizing Reflected and Transmitted Waves

Highlights of the activity

1. This computer visualization activity is designed to help upper-division undergraduate students understand the concepts of reflection and transmission of a single-frequency sinusoidal wave, as well as the continuity of the derivative of the waveform at the boundary.
2. Students observe the Maple/Mathematica animation of the total waveform and its constituent incident, reflected, and transmitted components. Students ask questions.
3. The whole class discussion focuses on students' observations and addresses students' questions.

Reasons to spend class time on the activity

Students gain enormous insight from viewing the animation. It prompts many questions and much discussion. Students have often told the instructor that this particular exercise was pivotal for them because they had never seen an animation of a superposition of a left- and right-traveling wave before.

Reflections

• Reflections from the original implementation.

• Reflections from "official" adapters/adopters.

• Reflections from the general public.

Instructor's Guide

• Wiki version

Maple Worksheet

wvreftrananim.mw (Maple 13)

Mathematica Notebook

wvreftrananim.nb