A certain transverse traveling wave on a string can be represented by 

where y is the displacement of the string, x is position of a point along the string and t is the time.

 What are the units of the coefficients ot the x-term and the t-term in the above expression? What do we call those coefficients? 

Suppose you suspend a 3 meter nylon rope from a hook in the ceiling and tie a 10 kg ball to the end of the rope. The mass of the rope is 0.5 kg. Now you pluck the rope. That sends a wave up and down the rope. Estimate the speed of propagation of that wave. 

A certain transverse traveling wave on a string can be represented by 

where y is the displacement of the string, x is position of a point along the string and t is the time.

 A wave can also be represented by a similar equation where the two terms in the argument of the sine function have opposite signs. Is this wave different from the one represented by the original expression? If the answer is yes, what is the difference? 

How much faster does sound travel in steel than in water? What properties of the two materials are responsible for this difference?