Wave Interference Pool
Click anywhere to create wave sources. Watch circular ripples spread, overlap, and interfere — constructive where crests meet crests, destructive where crests meet troughs. The wave equation made visible.
Superposition
The wave equation is linear: any sum of solutions is also a solution. When two circular waves overlap, their amplitudes add algebraically. Where crests align, the amplitude doubles (constructive interference). Where a crest meets a trough, they cancel (destructive interference). The result is an interference pattern — those bright lines and dark nodal curves that ripple tanks reveal so clearly.
This simulation solves the 2D wave equation with damping on a discrete grid, using a finite difference scheme. Walls reflect waves (Neumann boundary conditions). The double-slit preset recreates Young’s famous 1801 experiment that proved light is a wave — the same physics at work in a bathtub.