Final answer:
The number of times a section of a transverse wave on a rope oscillates per second is the wave's frequency. Frequency differs from amplitude and wavelength and is a measure of how many oscillations occur each second.
Step-by-step explanation:
In a transverse wave on a rope, the number of times a section of the rope oscillates per second is known as the wave's frequency. The term amplitude refers to the vertical height of a wave, which indicates the energy of the wave. Frequency is different from amplitude in that it is measured by how many complete wavelengths pass a point in a given unit of time. The wavelength is the distance between two consecutive identical points on the waveform, and this distance is not the same as frequency.
To illustrate, if you were observing the waves on a rope and counted the number of complete up-and-down oscillations made by a section of the rope each second, you would be measuring the frequency of the wave. Therefore, the correct answer to the question is b) Frequency.
It’s worth noting that if two transverse waves have the same frequency and speed, the one with the greater amplitude carries more energy. It is also important to understand that the speed of a wave is the product of its frequency and wavelength, and is not determined by the amplitude.