Refraction
Investigate refraction and total internal reflection
Explore how light bends when passing between different media. Observe Snell's law, the critical angle and total internal reflection.
"The next great era of awakening of human intellect may well produce a method of understanding the qualitative content of equations."
Total Internal Reflection
Investigate TIR and the critical angle
Use a semi-circular glass block and triangular prism to investigate total internal reflection, find the critical angle, and observe dispersion.
Wave Properties
Explore transverse and longitudinal waves
Visualise wavelength, frequency, amplitude and the wave equation. Compare transverse and longitudinal wave behaviour.
Electromagnetic Spectrum
Explore the full EM spectrum
Investigate the properties, uses and dangers of different parts of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma rays.
Speed of Sound
Measure the speed of sound in air
Use a time-of-flight method to measure the speed of sound. Drag the microphone, trigger a sound pulse, record distance and time, and calculate wave speed.
Virtual Oscilloscope
See sound waves on a single-channel scope
Display a generated sine wave (with adjustable frequency and volume) or your microphone input. Change the timebase and vertical scale to investigate how waves look on a scope.
Doppler Effect
How does motion change what we hear?
Watch a moving source emit wavefronts. See how waves bunch up ahead of the source and stretch out behind it, and use oscilloscope readouts to compare the frequency at two observers.