Pink neon rings of sound spreading from a neon fire engine on a clear sign, hanging in a rainy window at night

Waves and Sound: an interactive 3D physics chapter

Waves and Sound, an interactive 3D physics chapter for GCSE, Cambridge IGCSE and CBSE students: how sound travels and how waves behave. Ten short lessons in a launderette at night, where each record you pick on a jukebox lifts its neon drawing off a rainy window into the room: how one groove holds a whole band; how a wave moves through air while the air stays put; frequency and pitch, amplitude and loudness; counting the seconds between lightning and thunder; why sound needs a medium and space is silent; echoes and the bats that hunt with them; why sound bends back down on a cold night; standing waves, nodes and harmonics on a guitar string; the Doppler effect of a passing siren; and how P and S waves showed the Earth’s outer core is liquid. Each lesson has a short guided tour at your own speed, a hands-on try and a quiz, in ten languages: English, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, French, German and Russian.

Demos
Pink neon rings of sound spreading from a neon fire engine on a clear sign, hanging in a rainy window at night

Interactive 3D demo

Waves and Sound

Ten interactive 3D physics lessons on waves and sound: how a record stores a song, why thunder comes late, echoes, the Doppler effect and earthquake waves.

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