We present results from our ongoing investigation of student understanding of periodic waves and interference phenomena at the introductory physics level. We have found that many students experience significant difficulties when they attempt to express a distance of interest in terms of the wavelength of a periodic wave. We argue that for these students such difficulties may be a significant barrier to understanding important wave phenomena such as interference and diffraction.
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In the introductory physics courses discussed here, all media were approximated as non-dispersive. In the relationship f only depends on the source, v only depends on properties of a medium (e.g., depth for water waves).
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2013
American Association of Physics Teachers
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