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Written by TParker
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Friday, 04 February 2005 |
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The distance between two identical points on a waveform i.e. one cycle of the waveform, or the spatial distance between two identical points of an electromagnetic or sound pressure wave which have the same phase. In high frequency waves, there are more cycles in a given unit of time than there are in low frequency waves, this means they are closer together and consequently the wavelength of a high frequency is shorter than that of a low frequency. The wavelength of an given frequency can be determined by dividing the speed of propagation of the wave by its frequency. For electromagnetic waves this is c/f, where c is the velocity of light and f is frequency, this gives a result in metres. For sound pressure waves it is approximately 334 m/s divided by the frequency in Hz, so that audio frequencies have wavelengths in the range from 16 metres to 1.6 centimetres.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 August 2005 )
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