Boat Rocking Period from Sea Waves

← Back to Problems
Oscillations and Waves Beginner Mechanical wave

Source: High school physics (Chinese)

Problem Sets:

Waves

Problem

A boat is moored at the shore. The sea waves have a distance of $6$ m between adjacent crests and travel with a wave speed of $1.5$ m/s.

Find the period with which the boat rocks.
$T = 4$ s.

The distance between adjacent crests is one wavelength, $\lambda = 6$ m, and the boat rocks with the period of the passing wave. From $v = \lambda / T$, the period is $T = \dfrac{\lambda}{v} = \dfrac{6}{1.5} = 4$ s.