How do you find the pulse, the amplitutde, and the speed.. or any kind of information such as these, of a spring (the medium) only by just looking at it? :confused:

Rriiighhhtt...

I don't understand what you are asking...

If you were to fling a spring you and see the wave passing through it, how would you measure the wavelength, the speed, the amplitude, etc.
Cause what I'm thinking is, you can't cause your only observing what is happening, you have no accurate answer even if you were to use a metre stick and stop watch, but my textbook is saying YOU CAN and is telling me to write a lab on it. How am I suppose to write a procedure where you can actually record the quantitative and the qualitative observation?
Hope that is more clear -0-

Oh a long spring? Like a slinky? I thought you meant like a short spring... it made no sense.

Well you can take a picture, from that you can measure the amplitude and wavelength, You can work out the frequency by watching the time it takes for the source to complete one cycle, you can calculate the speed by sending a single pulse down the spring and timing that time.

There are many ways you can do any of these, And I'm sure you can work something out for your setup.

Thank you :cool:

What changes occur as a transverse or a longitudinal pulse travels along a spring?

How could you determine if the speed of the wave is affected by changes in the wave itself?
How could you determine if there is any chang ein amplitude o the pulse as it travels along the spring?

I'm no entirely certain what you're after here?

For a start, Maybe you could read about damping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damping).