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.