A first course in vibrations and waves

This book builds on introductory physics and emphasizes understanding of vibratory motion and waves based on first principles. The book is divided into three parts. Part I contains a preliminary chapter that serves as a review of relevant ideas of mechanics and complex numbers. Part II is devoted to a detailed discussion of vibrations of mechanical systems. This part covers a simple harmonic oscillator, coupled oscillators, normal coordinates, beaded string, continuous string, standing waves, and Fourier series. Part II ends with a presentation of stationary solutions of driven finite systems. Part III is concerned with waves. Here, the emphasis is on the discussion of common aspects of all types of waves. The applications to sound, electromagnetic, and matter waves are illustrated. The book also includes examples from water waves and electromagnetic waves on a transmission line. The emphasis of the book is to bring out the similarities among various types of waves. The book includes treatment of reflection and refraction of waves and the dependence of reflection and transmission coefficients on polarization. The book has a chapter on interference and interferometers. The book concludes with a chapter on diffraction. The book includes many examples to illustrate the main ideas. The exercises at the end of chapters are integral to the text. The solutions of the exercises are included in the appendix.