Applications of Waves

Applications of Waves

1. Telecommunications

   • Electromagnetic waves can send signals along long distances rapidly. Microwaves communicate with satellites as they are not absorbed by the atmosphere. Microwaves are used for satelite, TV broadcasts, sat-nav and mobile phone networks.
   • Bluetooth and WiFi networks use low energy radio waves that travel short distances.

2. Cable and Digital

   • Analogue signals can have any value, but digital signals are only on or off.
   • Digital signals are of higher quality as there is of less interference, it is not affected by distance and can be made stronger without losing information.

3. Searching in Space

   • Telescopes can be based on earth or in space.
   • Advantages of Earth based telescopes include that they reduce manufacturing costs and are easier to maintain, repair and update.
   • Advantages of Space based telescopes include that it produces clearer images as there is not atmospheric interference and all objects will be detected.
   • Examples of objects seen in Space
     • Gamma rays and X-ray - neutron star
     • Ultraviolet - hot stars, quasars
     • Visible - Stars
     • Infrared - red giants
     • Far infrared - protostars, planets
     • Radio - pulsars

4. Movement

   • When a source of light, sound or microwaves moves away from an observer the observed wavelength increases and the frequency decreases
   • If it moves towards an observer the observed wavelength decreases and frequency increases.
   • The change in observed wavelength is called the Doppler effect.

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