Match path lengths
Whole-wavelength path differences reinforce synchronized sources at the probe.
Ripple Tank
Step traveling water waves, combine two sources and explore wall reflections.
Grades 3–5 · Physics
Your goal
Use 60 unit wavelength in two-source mode. Make reinforcement at the probe and step one frame.
Reduced motion is on. The controls still update the scene.
Probe path difference 0 units, 0.00 wavelengths. Probe amplitude envelope 1.00 times one source. One source makes traveling rings. Current displacement -0.87.
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Each step advances one sixteenth of a period. These ideal steady waves add signed displacements and pass through one another. They have equal amplitude without radial spreading, damping or a startup wavefront. Only Source and wall mode reflects from the right edge, modeled by an equal-phase image source. Separation controls the second real source only. The probe envelope shows the largest possible displacement over a cycle, not its value in every frame.
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Learn with Ripple Tank
Ripple Tank gives elementary learners a stepable picture of traveling and overlapping water waves. Choose one source, two synchronized sources or a source beside a reflecting wall. Adjust wavelength, source separation and probe position, then advance the pattern one frame at a time. Blue and orange regions distinguish positive and negative displacement, while the probe reports path difference and the largest displacement possible during a cycle. Goals connect whole-wavelength differences with reinforcement and half-wavelength differences with cancellation using a deliberately simplified steady-wave model.
What to look for
Make cancellation
A half-wavelength path difference makes opposite displacements cancel at the probe.
Reflect a wave
Source and wall mode uses a rigid right wall. Move the probe to change the reflected path difference.
For teachers and curious learners
Use path difference to explain reinforcement and cancellation of coherent waves. Ask students to predict what will happen, change one setting, and explain what they observe. Learn gives a starting point. Practice and Challenge offer new goals with the same scene.
Ideal linear steady waves add signed displacements at equal amplitude without radial spreading, damping or a startup front. A rigid right wall uses an equal-phase image source. The probe envelope is peak amplitude over a cycle, not instantaneous height.