Answer to Question #85737 in Mechanics | Relativity for Pinki rawat

Question

The displacement of an oscillatior is written as y(t)=asin(wt+-u) whereas the equation of a wave is written as y(x,t)=asin(wt-kx) highlight the difference between the two

Answer 1

In the equation of the oscillator u is constant (initial phase) and determines the displacement at the initial time: in the equation of the wave kx changes with the change of x along the axis; at a fixed time this parameter determines the wave profile.