A quick update
Hi, I've been somewhat inactive on this site lately due to other commitments. I've still got two fairly major essays to get done and am still recovering from ultimate pi day (sorry Vi Hart).
However, I have finally started to do something that has been needing to get done for a while: write notes on waves! I've written up some notes by hand and scanned them in, so it shouldn't take too long to load them into word and annotate them. That will be only the first of three planned notes documents on the topic though: I personally don't like waves as a topic because it always feels like I don't know exactly what I'm doing. Don't get me wrong, I do have a clue, and I'm good enough to blag my way through AQA's exam at any rate. But I have been feeling like my grasp is not quantitative enough.
So, my antidote is twofold: first, I'm going to learn as much useful maths/physics that's relevant. Of note are complex numbers and trigonometry. There's some very detailed stuff on the topic in Vol I of the Feynman Lectures (so detailed that I did at first skip/skim a lot of it. That's making me suffer a little now). That will make me know as much about waves as I want.
The second step is to work out what's the best way to present this at A level standard and make notes on that. That's what I've just done today, make a bunch of diagrams bridging between GCSE knowledge and A level standards. Today's work will be the backbone of a document called 'introduction to waves' or something similar (it will have to fit on the button!) and then later I can make a different document about interference effects and diffraction. That will cover: principle of superposition, formation of standing waves, path difference, single and double slit diffraction, diffraction gratings.
Lastly, I'll write a document on the basic mathematics of waves- not the wave equation because I still don't get that. But it will cover wave number and angular frequency, the definition of a wave as f(x,t)=Acos(kx-wt) and some simple bits of trigonometry. If you want to learn more about waves before I post that (which will be a little while, sorry) then those are where I suggest you start.
And lastly for real this time: I recommend checking out Khan academy if you want to do some studying. One of the perks is that it's American oriented which means you get to view similar but different content from a different perspective since courses are typically structured differently. They also have a Java environment which I used to write this simple animation of a sound wave:
Have fun, and keep learning!
