Introduction
Welcome to the Sound Waves website. This material was originally developed at the Institute of Sound and Vibration Research (ISVR) as a CD-ROM to support the Sound Waves component of the English GCSE and A-level syllabuses, by Cedric Maury, Matthew Wright and Philip Nelson. A copy was sent to every school and sixth-form college physics teacher in the UK and, due to an overwhelmingly positive response, was made available on what was then the ISVR website. By popular demand it has now been ported to the new University of Southampton website structure. It’s also useful preparatory material for students intending to study on our Undergraduate and Masters programmes in Acoustical Engineering.
Because this site makes extensive use of animated GIF files to illustrate wave motion it is not fully compliant with the latest accessibility guidelines which require that such animations should not last longer than 5 seconds. It is intended to overcome this in a future version.
Many educators have contacted us requesting permission to use some of these animations in their teaching materials and presentations. You are welcome to do so, as long as you credit the original source, i.e. ISVR, University of Southampton and give the URL of this home page.