• Question: why do we have different sized waves

    Asked by Abdullah786 to Ashley, Bernard, Carsten, MariaMagdalena, Monique on 17 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Monique Henson

      Monique Henson answered on 17 Nov 2015:

      Do you have any particular type of wave in mind? The size of wave depends on the way that it’s generated. You can see this you imagine a slinky lying on the ground, where one person holds each end. You can create a wave by getting one person to move one end of the slinky from side to side along the ground. If they move the end of the slinky really far, then they’ll create really big waves – waves with a big amplitude. If they only move it a little bit, then they’ll create small waves.

      They can also change the frequency of the waves (how often there’s a peak). The fast they move the slinky from side to side, the larger the frequency will be.

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