Introduction to Resonance How do people make beautiful music with wine glasses? How do you break a wine glass by singing loudly in front of it? Sound waves allow us to do some pretty neat things when we know how to use them. Light waves, too, interact in special ways with the objects around them.

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The behavior of sound and light waves explains why we hear sounds from musical instruments and why we see color and objects. A trumpet increases the amplitude of a sound wave.

A colored object increases the amplitude of a light wave. These changes in amplitude are caused by an important principle called resonance.

In this lesson, we'll talk about resonance and how it affects the transmission of sound and light. Resonant Frequency We already know that waves originate from vibrations.

Sound waves come from mechanical vibrations in solids, liquids, and gases. Light waves come from the vibration of charged particles. Objects, charged particles, and mechanical systems usually have a certain frequency at which they tend to vibrate.

This is called their resonant frequency, or their natural frequency. Some objects have two or more resonant frequencies. You know when you drive on a bumpy road and your car begins to bounce up and down? Your car is oscillating at its resonant frequency; or really, the resonant frequency of the shock absorbers.

You may notice that when you're riding in a bus, the bouncing frequency is a little bit slower. That's because the bus's shock absorbers have a lower resonant frequency. When a sound or light wave strikes an object, it is already vibrating at some particular frequency. If that frequency happens to match the resonant frequency of the object it's hitting, then you'll get what's called resonance. Resonance occurs when the amplitude of an object's oscillations are increased by the matching vibrations of another object. This relationship is difficult to imagine without an example. So, let's explore the subject of resonance further in the context of light waves.

Photoshow 4 25. Transmission and Resonance of Light Waves Let's take a typical light wave. We'll say it's a stream of white light that comes from the sun. And, let's take a dark object, like a western rat snake slithering through your yard. The molecules in the snake's skin have a set of resonant frequencies.

That is, the electrons in the atoms tend to vibrate at certain frequencies. The light coming down from the sun is white light. So, it has not just one but many wave frequencies.

It has frequencies of red and green, blue and yellow, orange and violet. Each of these frequencies strikes the snake's skin. And, each frequency makes a different electron vibrate.

The yellow frequency resonates with the electrons whose resonant frequency is yellow. The blue frequency resonates with the electrons whose resonant frequency is blue. So, the snake's skin, as a whole, resonates with the sunlight.

The snake appears black because its skin absorbs all frequencies of sunlight. When light waves resonate with an object, they cause the electrons to vibrate with high amplitudes. The light energy is absorbed by the object, and we don't see that light coming back to us at all. The object appears black. Since a western rat snake absorbs all the frequencies of sunlight, then it appears as a black snake. What if an object does not absorb any of the sunlight? What if none of its electrons resonate with the light frequencies?

If resonance does not occur, then what you'll get is transmission, the passing of light waves through an object. The glass appears clear because it does not absorb any sunlight.