Simple Outgoing Spherical Wave

This animation shows a simple omnidirectional outgoing spherical or cylindrical wave generated by a point source.

The upper figure shows a representation of the molecular distribution. The darker areas represent areas where the density is greater indicating a compression. Midway between the compressions are regions of lower density indicating rarefactions.

The lower figure shows a plot of the resulting acoustic pressure or acoustic velocity profile. In this plot the 1/r dependence from spherical spreading is clear. The amplitude at the origin, for a true point source, would be infinite.

These animations were generated using MATLAB and saved as AVI files. The AVI files were converted to animated GIF files using the Ulead Gif Animator software.