Speed Of Transverse Wave On A String - Practice Questions & MCQ

The distance between two successive crests is 1 wavelength, λ. Thus in one time period, the wave will travel 1 wavelength in distance. Thus the speed of the wave, v is:

The speed of the traverse wave is determined by the restoring force set up in the medium when it is disturbed and the inertial properties ( mass density ) of the medium. The inertial property will in this case be linear mass density  .

 where m is the mass of the string and L is length. 

The dimension of    is  and T is like force whose dimension is  . We need to combine these dimension to get the dimension of speed v which is. 

Therefore speed of wave in a string is given as :

Now Let's understand its derivation.

Take a small element of length   and mass dm of string as shown in the below figure (a)

Here 

So For figure (b)

Now using

we get