Waves – GCSE AQA Higher Physics revision notes

What this topic covers

Waves has 3 subtopics:

• Waves in air, fluids and solids
• Electromagnetic waves
• Black body radiation (physics only)

Waves lessons by subtopic

19 lessons, grouped by subtopic.

Waves in air, fluids and solids

• Ultrasound and Echo Sounding: Explore how ultrasound is used in medical and industrial imaging, and how echo sounding helps detect objects in deep water.
• Seismic Waves and Earth's Structure: Investigate how P-waves and S-waves provide evidence about the Earth's core and how seismic wave studies have led to new discoveries.
• Wave Properties for Detection and Exploration: Learn how differences in wave velocity, absorption, and reflection are used to detect and explore hidden structures.
• Wave Characteristics: Amplitude, Wavelength & Frequency: Learn about the fundamental properties of waves: amplitude, wavelength, frequency and period. Investigate how to measure these properties and the relationship between period and frequency.
• Measuring Wave Speed: Sound and Water: Explore methods to measure the speed of sound waves in air and ripples on a water surface. Understand the concept of wave speed and factors affecting it.
• Wave Equation & Changing Mediums: Discover the wave equation and how it relates wave speed, frequency, and wavelength. Also, learn how changes in these properties are inter-related when sound waves move from one medium to another.
• Sound Waves and Vibrations: Explore how sound waves interact with solids and the human ear.
• The Human Hearing Range: Investigate the limited frequency range of human hearing and why it exists.

Electromagnetic waves

• Producing and Absorbing Radio Waves and Gamma Rays: Explore how radio waves are produced and absorbed by electrical circuits and how gamma rays originate from changes in the nucleus of an atom.
• Hazards of UV, X-rays, and Gamma Rays: Learn about the hazardous effects of ultraviolet waves, X-rays, and gamma rays on the human body, including radiation dose and the risks of exposure.
• Visible Light: Absorption, Reflection, and Transmission: Explore how objects interact with light, determining their colour through absorption, reflection, and transmission. Understand transparent, translucent, and opaque properties.
• Colour Filters & Wavelengths: Discover how colour filters work by absorbing specific wavelengths and transmitting others. Examine specular and diffuse reflection, linking wavelength to colour within the visible spectrum.
• Convex and Concave Lenses: Learn how lenses refract light, the difference between convex and concave lenses, and how to represent them in ray diagrams.
• Ray Diagrams: Explore ray diagrams for both convex and concave lenses and understand the images they produce.
• Magnification: Learn how to calculate magnification using image and object heights, including units and application to ray diagrams.
• Radio Waves, Microwaves and Infrared: Explore the uses of radio waves, microwaves, and infrared radiation in communication, cooking, and heating.

Black body radiation (physics only)

• Infrared Radiation: Emission and Absorption: Explore how objects emit and absorb infrared radiation, focusing on the relationship between temperature and radiation, and introducing the concept of a perfect black body.
• Emission and Absorption: An introduction to black body radiation, covering emission, absorption, and temperature dependence.
• Earth's Temperature and Radiation Balance: Explore the factors affecting Earth's temperature, including radiation absorption, emission, and reflection.

Revise Right Mocks '26

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More in this course

Go back to the full GCSE AQA Higher Physics topic list, or practise this topic with past-paper questions.