I cannot for the life of me properly understand waves and energy in physics, no matter how many definitions and explanations I come across.
I can do calculations with all of these things, but I have trouble understanding what they represent in reality. Can I touch a wave? Is a wave a physical thing like an object, that moves up and down? Ditto for energy.
The definitions of these things are kinda unhelpful. Defining wave as “thing that transfers energy” doesn’t tell me what that *thing* is, for example; it just tells me something about the thing.
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Think of a wave how you think of a gust of wind,
You understand intuitively that wind is a thing that moves air, but it isnt really a “thing”,
its a transfer of energy.
An example of a wave in action is a whip. The base (handle) of a whip is thick and heavy, it tapers to a thin end.
When you start the wave of a whipping motion, it takes more energy/ effort on your part to get it going, due to the thicker, heavier handle, as this large initial energy input moves down the whip, it speeds up because the amount of mass being moves is less and less, so it gets faster and faster, until the wave reaches the tip and it breaks the sound barrier.
This is just an example of a wave, but hopefully it can help you understand how waves in different mediums, made up of different particles can have various energy levels and can “move through” things
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