🌊 Wave Superposition Lab

Wave Superposition Simulator — Standing Waves & Fourier

This wave superposition lab covers four modes of wave combination. Standing Waves mode animates a vibrating string with configurable boundary conditions (fixed-fixed, fixed-free, free-free), shows nodes (red dots) and antinodes (green dots), and lets you set harmonic number from 0.5 to 8. Interference mode renders a real-time 2D pixel interference pattern from two draggable point sources. Beats mode draws two waves and their superposition with a beat envelope. Fourier mode builds a waveform from up to 8 harmonics with individual amplitude sliders and presets for square and sawtooth waves.

What you can do in this simulation

• Switch between Standing, Interference, Beats, and Fourier modes
• Select boundary conditions: fixed-fixed, fixed-free, or free-free
• Adjust harmonic number (0.5–8), amplitude, and damping for standing waves
• Set frequency, amplitude, and phase per source in interference and beats modes
• Build square, sawtooth, or custom waveforms with 8 harmonic sliders in Fourier mode

Concepts covered

wave superposition · standing waves · interference · beat frequency · Fourier series · boundary conditions

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