In: Physics
Explain how standing waves are produced in terms of wave interference.
Standing waves are also called stationary waves. As the name suggests these waves appears to be standing/stationary though actually it is moving.
It is a vibrational pattern , produced when the waves emitted from a source in a medium interfere with the reflected waves from the same source with in the medium.
Interference of light is the redistribution of light energy when two or more waves are superposed with in a medium. There will be regions of maximum and minimum energies. In the case of the standing waves formed by the interference of waves , the destructive interference leads to the formation of points where the amplitude of the standing wave will be zero. These points are called nodes. Antinodes are points of maximum amplitude, formed by the constructive interference.
One of the common examples of standing waves in real life is the one that produced in string instruments like guitar.