How are waves made?
Imagine a small pond, with no wind blowing on it, just pure calm glassy water. Now toss a pebble into the center of the pond. Once the pebble makes contact with the water, notice that small ripples move out in all directions from the point of impact. The ripples continue traveling away from each other until they encounter land, where they break (if you look real close) and dissipate. There’s three things to consider from this example: 1) The ripples have a measurable size or height, 2) They travel towards shore with a measurable speed, and 3) They cover measurable distance that spans from their point of origin until they reach the shore. After the pond calms down, throw a bigger rock into it. Of course bigger ripples result. Observe that the ripples have a larger height and are moving away from their source faster this time. If you toss yet a bigger rock, bigger and faster waves result. Congratulations, you know all the basics about wave mechanics. But how does this translate into the
