Transverse and Longitudinal Waves

Mechanical waves are a type of wave that involves the repetitive back-and-forth movement of matter. Mechanical waves must travel through a substance; they cannot travel through a vacuum (empty space). There are two main types of mechanical waves: transverse and longitudinal.

What do you observe about the motion of the individual particles?

Keyboard Shortcut	Action
Space	Pause/Play video playback
Enter	Pause/Play video playback
m	Mute/Unmute video volume
Up and Down arrows	Increase and decrease volume by 10%
Right and Left arrows	Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds
0-9	Fast seek to x% of the video.
f	Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key.
c	Press c to toggle captions on or off

In a transverse wave, the particles move perpendicular to the direction of the wave motion. Click play to see the motion of a transverse wave.

Keyboard Shortcut	Action
Space	Pause/Play video playback
Enter	Pause/Play video playback
m	Mute/Unmute video volume
Up and Down arrows	Increase and decrease volume by 10%
Right and Left arrows	Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds
0-9	Fast seek to x% of the video.
f	Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key.
c	Press c to toggle captions on or off

In a longitudinal wave, the particles move parallel to the direction of the wave. Click play to see the motion of a longitudinal wave. Some particles have been highlighted in red.