a child sits on a dock and notices that 8 wavelenghts pass the end of the dock in 4 seconds. WHat is the frequency of the waves passing the dock?

Question

b. What us is the period of the waves in question 1?

Answer 1

The frequency of a wave is the number of waves that pass a point in a second. Since there are 8 waves that pass in 4 seconds, the frequency would be

^{8 waves}/_{4 seconds} = ^{2 waves}/_{1 second}

So the frequency would be 2 waves/second. The unit of measurement for frequency is Hertz, so the frequency is 2 Hz

The period is the reciprocal of the frequency; that is, the period is how many seconds it takes for a wave to pass a point.

Since the frequency is 2 Hz, the period would be ¹/_frequency = ¹/₂ second, or 0.5 second