How many times a minute does a boat bob up and down on ocean waves that have a wavelength of 40.0 m and a propagation speed of 5.00 m/s?

Video Transcript

This is College Physics Answers with Shaun Dychko. We want to know how many times a minute a boat bobs up and down on ocean waves that have a wavelength of 40.0 meters and a speed of 5.00 meters per second. The wave equation says that the wave speed is its frequency times its wavelength so if we divide both sides by λ and that solves for the frequency f. So the frequency is the wave speed divided by its wavelength so that's 5.00 meters per second divided by 40.0 meters which is 0.125 hertz. Now this is cycles per second and the question is asking for the number of cycles or the number of bobs per minute so we multiply by 60 seconds per minute and this works out to 7.50 bobs per minute.