Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematical-methods-ii-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2018/7/solution

Write the initial triangular pulse as the function , extended by zero to negative arguments:
At , the initial displacement and zero velocity give and on the positive half-line. Fix the harmless opposite additive constants by taking both travelling waves to vanish at positive infinity. Then
The second formula follows from the fixed-end boundary condition . Thus is one-half of the odd extension of the initial displacement, and
This is the odd-extension solution for a semi-infinite fixed string: the reflected displacement reverses sign. Evaluating the travelling profiles gives
The first profile is a positive triangle supported on , with peak at . The second has a negative triangle on with minimum at , and a positive triangle on with maximum at .
Figure 1.
The two requested displacement profiles after fixed-end reflection of a triangular pulse, with lengths scaled by and heights by
. Details.

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