Visualizing Waves

The front (left) and side (right) views of a wave.

Head-on and side views of a wave (drawn as a sine wave), with a dot draw on the curve at a particular location. As the wave advances, the dot is pulled up and down and up and down along the curve. When viewing the wave head-on, we see the dot rise up above the origin and then down below it, moving vertically. When viewing the wave from the side, we see that the waves passes from left to right; as the dot does not move horizontally it is pulled up and then down as the height of the wave changes at its location.
[NMSU, N. Vogt]


How does wavelength change with color?

A sine wave is shown to represent the wavelength of light across the visual spectrum, labeled to run from short wavelengths (3600 Angstroms) to long wavelengths (8400 Angstroms). Colors are added over the same range, starting with V(iolet), I(ndigo), B(lue) , and G(reen), and ending with Y(ellow), O(range), and R(ed). The wave changes color to match, and is drawn as a wave increasing smoothly in wavelength over the range.
[NMSU, N. Vogt]