A woman is sitting in a boat at anchor on a lake. Her boat bobs up and down once every 2.0·s. She notices that when the front of her 3.0·m long boat is at one wave crest, a second crest is at the middle of her boat, and a third is at the end.
What is the frequency of the waves?
It doesn't matter how long her boat is. The boat bobs up and down every 2 seconds. In that time, two wave fronts have passed. So, the frequency is 2waves/2sec = 1/sec = 1 Hz.
Damon got it right.
The two wave fronts means that the boat has bobbed twice by the time they have passed, but it only bobs once in 2 seconds. So, frequency is indeed 1/2 Hz
To determine the frequency of the waves, we need to first understand the concept of frequency. Frequency refers to the number of wave cycles that occur in a unit of time. In this case, the time period for one complete wave cycle is given - it takes 2.0 seconds for the boat to bob up and down once.
To find the frequency, we can use the formula:
Frequency (f) = 1 / Time period (T)
In this case, the time period (T) is given as 2.0 seconds. So, we substitute the values into the formula:
Frequency (f) = 1 / 2.0
Frequency (f) = 0.5 Hz
Therefore, the frequency of the waves is 0.5 Hz, which means that one complete wave cycle occurs every 0.5 seconds.