Crocodile Clips Yenka Light and Sound - Site licence

Waves

Yenka lets you take a top-down view of wave propagation, and study key phenomena - such as refraction, interference, diffraction and reflection - with water, sound or EM waves.

Point or plane wave sources, and a moving source whose velocity and bearing you can control, generate waves. You can also control the frequency, phase and amplitude of each source.

Add obstacles, reflectors and slits to investigate reflection, refraction, diffraction and interference. Position these components wherever you want, and control properties like size, orientation, damping, slit spacing and width, and the material from which each is made.

Optics

A powerful optics simulator, with a range of components including lenses, prisms, mirrors and light sources, lets you model ray diagrams.

You can import your own images and investigate how they look when viewed in lenses in mirrors. As shown below, intensity and blurring are modelled.

The rays from the object are drawn as you simulate, letting you trace their path through the optical system.

Properties for all of the optical components can be changed, either by dragging with the mouse or by typing in new values. You can also position the components however you like - a true virtual workbench.