Question

You are watching a wave with a frequency of 512 Hz go past. How many peaks of the wave go past you each minute?

Answer 1

Answer:

61440

Explanation:

The period of a sine wave is the length of one cycle of the wave and is characterized by having two peaks a negative and a positive (See the image).

The frequency on the waves is given in hz equivalent to one cycle per second, so 512 hz are 512 cycles per second, given that one minute is equivalent to 60 seconds we have a total of 60*512 = 30720 cycles per second, because each cycle contains two peaks the total amount of peaks in one minute is 30720 *2 =61440

Answer 2

Answer:

61440 peaks

Explanation:

A hertz represents one cycle for every second:

$f= Hz=\frac{1}{s}$

So if a wave have frequency of 2Hz for example, this means the wave does two cycles per second.

Normally the waves are represented by cosine or sine waves. These kind of waves have two peaks in each cycle, one positive and one negative. With this in mind, let's calculate how many peaks of the wave pass each minute.

A minute has 60 seconds, hence:

$60*512=30720\hspace{3}cycles\hspace{3}per\hspace{3}minute$

And we know already that every cycle has two peaks, so:

$30720*2=61440\hspace{3}peaks\hspace{3}per\hspace{3}minute$