and then the downward component of the tension force pulls the ring back down. This movement of the ring produces a reflected pulse that is not inverted and that has the same amplitude as the incoming pulse.
Finally, we may have a situation in which the boundary is intermediate between these two extremes. In this case, part of the energy in the incident pulse is reflected
and part undergoes transmission—that is, some of the energy passes through the
boundary. For instance, suppose a light string is attached to a heavier string, as in Fig-
ure 16.16. When a pulse traveling on the light string reaches the boundary between the two, part of the pulse is reflected and inverted and part is transmitted to the heav- ier string. The reflected pulse is inverted for the same reasons described earlier in the case of the string rigidly attached to a support.
Note that the reflected pulse has a smaller amplitude than the incident pulse. In Section 16.5, we show that the energy carried by a wave is related to its amplitude. Ac- cording to the principle of the conservation of energy, when the pulse breaks up into a reflected pulse and a transmitted pulse at the boundary, the sum of the energies of these two pulses must equal the energy of the incident pulse. Because the reflected pulse contains only part of the energy of the incident pulse, its amplitude must be smaller.
When a pulse traveling on a heavy string strikes the boundary between the heavy string and a lighter one, as in Figure 16.17, again part is reflected and part is transmit- ted. In this case, the reflected pulse is not inverted.
In either case, the relative heights of the reflected and transmitted pulses depend on the relative densities of the two strings. If the strings are identical, there is no dis- continuity at the boundary and no reflection takes place.