Past exam of the mathematics course of the year 2 of the natural sciences course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / Paper 1 / 2 / b

Assume the struck interval lies within the string, so $0\le \ell -a/2<\ell +a/2\le L$. The initially stationary straight string has $A_n=0$. Write its initial velocity as a Fourier sine series $g(x)={\sum }_n{g}_n\sin (k_{n}x)$. ThenThus $y(x,t)={\sum }_n(g_n/{\omega }_n)\sin ({\omega }_{n}t)\sin (k_{n}x)$. Immediately after the strike all the energy is kinetic energy:The orthogonality integral ${\int }_0^L\sin (k_{n}x)\sin (k_{m}x)dx=(L/2){\delta }_{nm}$ assigns energy $E_n=\rho L{g}_n^2/4$ to mode $n$. Since the ideal modes evolve independently, their total kinetic-plus-elastic energies remain constant. Therefore the modal energy of a localized velocity impulse on a string givesThe centre factor selects modes having significant motion at the impact location; the width factor accounts for cancellation across the finite hammer footprint. Parseval's identity ensures ${\sum }_{n\ge 1}{E}_n/E=1$. The velocity discontinuities are understood in the mean-square sense and do not alter the energy integrals.