Assuming the waves travel in straight lines, how far away is the center of the earthquake?

The average speeds of transverse and longitudinal waves in rock are 8.9 km/s and 5.1 km/s respectively. A seismograph records the arrival of the transverse waves 73 s before that of the longitudinal waves.

1 Answer
Jul 20, 2016

Waves becoming straight is a limit problem of amplitude tending to 0 and/or the velocity of propagation ((2pi)/(period)2πperiod) becoming 0, in the limit.

Explanation:

Waves become straight when amplitude tends to 0 and/or the

velocity of propagation ((2pi)/(period)2πperiod) becoming 0, in the limit.

When the velocity of propagation to0, the period to oo and the

frequency to0.

So, in my opinion, the results for this virtual limit problem are results

for your problem.

The model is x =h sin (kt+alpha)x=hsin(kt+α), where h and/or k to 0.