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Transverse waves are contrasted with longitudinal waves, where the oscillations occur in the direction of the wave. The standard example of a longitudinal wave is a sound wave or "pressure wave" in gases, liquids, or solids, whose oscillations cause compression and expansion of the material through which the wave is propagating.
Longitudinal wave. A type of longitudinal wave: A plane pressure pulse wave. Longitudinal waves are waves in which the vibration of the medium is parallel to the direction the wave travels and displacement of the medium is in the same (or opposite) direction of the wave propagation. Mechanical longitudinal waves are also called compressional or ...
In physics, a mechanical wave is a wave that is an oscillation of matter, and therefore transfers energy through a material medium. [ 1] (. Vacuum is, from classical perspective, a non-material medium, where electromagnetic waves propagate.) While waves can move over long distances, the movement of the medium of transmission—the material—is ...
Wave. Surface waves in water showing water ripples. In physics, mathematics, engineering, and related fields, a wave is a propagating dynamic disturbance (change from equilibrium) of one or more quantities. Periodic waves oscillate repeatedly about an equilibrium (resting) value at some frequency. When the entire waveform moves in one direction ...
Linearly polarized waves consist of photons that are in a superposition of right and left circularly polarized states, with equal amplitude and phases synchronized to give oscillation in a plane. [8] Polarization is an important parameter in areas of science dealing with transverse waves, such as optics, seismology, radio, and microwaves.
S waves are transverse waves, meaning that the direction of particle movement of an S wave is perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation, and the main restoring force comes from shear stress. [2] Therefore, S waves cannot propagate in liquids [3] with zero (or very low) viscosity; however, they may propagate in liquids with high ...
A seismic wave is a mechanical wave of acoustic energy that travels through the Earth or another planetary body. It can result from an earthquake (or generally, a quake ), volcanic eruption, magma movement, a large landslide and a large man-made explosion that produces low-frequency acoustic energy.
The (two-way) wave equation is a hyperbolic partial differential equation describing waves, including traveling and standing waves; the latter can be considered as linear superpositions of waves traveling in opposite directions. This article mostly focuses on the scalar wave equation describing waves in scalars by scalar functions u = u (x, y ...