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Superposition of Waves Calculator


Shodor > CSERD > Catalog > Superposition of Waves Calculator

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1 Published Review


VerificationReview by CSERD Reviewer
Published / Modified 202 months 20 days ago
Documentation Review: The documentation seems generally adequate. It would be more appropriate for lower grade levels if the variables of the wave functions were fully labeled: A - amplitude, k - frequency, phi - phase, omega - velocity, etc. Problem(s) annotations: I tested the applets with Windows XP, Sun's Java Runtime Environment v1.5, and both Internet Explorer 6.0 and Firefox 1.04. All of the problems I found occured with both browsers. There is a problem with the window which appears when you click "set graph limits." When it first opens the "ok" and "cancel" buttons are illegible and the two text entry boxes for setting the range of the graph are not visible. If you stretch the window you can see the text in the buttons and the text entry fields fine--the fix is probably as simple as increasing the default window size. All of the text entry boxes, both in the main view and the "set graph limits" window should implement some sort of bounds checking. If you enter a value larger than or smaller than 2^1023 (approximately 10E307) into any of the text boxes and apply the change the applet stops responding, pounds the CPU, and locks up the browser (requiring an external termination). Recommendations: This resource is generally usable without any changes, however it is fairly important to fix the "set graph limits" window or at least mention the problem in the documentation. The problem with very large input sizes is probably unlikely to be encountered, but the solution (bounds checking) is trivial. An inclusion of example presets for some typical superposition phenomena (standing waves, beats, etc.) would be a helpful, but not critical, addition.
Usability of the resource: Very usable
Platform(s) tested: win2000
Browser(s) tested: explorer, firefox

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