01
Simple harmonic motion
Why does almost every small oscillation look like a sine wave?
CourseFree
8.03SC Physics III — Vibrations and Waves ↗MIT OCW
Yen-Jie Lee's course. The backbone of this module.
Classical · Module 04
Oscillations, Waves & Sound
Everything that returns to where it started obeys nearly the same equation. Learn it once here and you will meet it again in circuits, in quantum mechanics, and in the LIGO detector.
By the end of this module
You can decompose any signal into sines — the single most reused idea in all of physics and engineering.
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02
Damping, driving, and resonance
Why does a small periodic push build into a catastrophe?
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Coupled oscillator applets ↗Paul Falstad
Hand-built physics applets that have taught two decades of students.
03
The wave equation and superposition
What do a string, a sound, and light have in common mathematically?
04
Sound, beats and the Doppler effect
What exactly moves when sound travels?
05
Fourier: every wave is a sum of sines
Is the decomposition into sines a convenience, or a fact about the world?
VideoFree
But what is the Fourier Transform? A visual introduction ↗3Blue1Brown
The winding-machine explanation. Nothing else comes close.
Check yourself
End-of-module quiz
Every answer comes with the reasoning, not just a verdict. Getting one wrong and reading why is the point.
01A mass on a spring has its mass quadrupled. The period:
02Two sound sources at 440 Hz and 444 Hz play together. You hear:
03Resonance destroys a structure when:
Answer all 3 to finish the module.