What type of wave makes up sound

Need a Manual? Search by Product Title or Number ». So what type of wave is sound? Sound waves fall into three categories: longitudinal waves, mechanical waves, and pressure waves.

Keep reading to find out what qualifies them as such. If you push a slinky back and forth, the coils move in a parallel fashion back and forth. Similarly, when a tuning fork is struck, the direction of the sound wave is parallel to the motion of the air particles.

Mechanical Sound Waves - A sound wave moves through air by displacing air particles in a chain reaction. As one particle is displaced from its equilibrium position, it pushes or pulls on neighboring molecules, causing them to be displaced from their equilibrium. As particles continue to displace one another with mechanical vibrations, the disturbance is transported throughout the medium.

These particle-to-particle, mechanical vibrations of sound conductance qualify sound waves as mechanical waves. Sound energy, or energy associated with the vibrations created by a vibrating source, requires a medium to travel, which makes sound energy a mechanical wave.

Do not conclude that sound is a transverse wave that has crests and troughs. Sound waves traveling through air are indeed longitudinal waves with compressions and rarefactions. As sound passes through air or any fluid medium , the particles of air do not vibrate in a transverse manner. Do not be misled - sound waves traveling through air are longitudinal waves.

A sound wave is a pressure wave; regions of high compressions and low pressure rarefactions are established as the result of the vibrations of the sound source. These compressions and rarefactions result because sound. Since the particles of the medium vibrate in a longitudinal fashion, compressions and rarefactions are created. Study the tuning fork animation provided on the Tutorial page. Physics Tutorial. My Cart Subscription Selection. Student Extras. We Would Like to Suggest Why just read about it and when you could be interacting with it?

Interact - that's exactly what you do when you use one of The Physics Classroom's Interactives. All light waves are examples of electromagnetic waves.

A mechanical wave is a wave that is not capable of transmitting its energy through a vacuum. Mechanical waves require a medium in order to transport their energy from one location to another. All sound waves are examples of mechanical waves. A transverse wave is a wave in which particles of the medium move in a direction perpendicular to the direction that the wave moves. This type of wave is a transverse wave. Transverse waves are always characterized by particle motion being perpendicular to wave motion.

A longitudinal wave is a wave in which particles of the medium move in a direction parallel to the direction that the wave moves. This type of wave is a longitudinal wave.

Longitudinal waves are always characterized by particle motion being parallel to wave motion. A sound wave is an example of a longitudinal wave. The dashed line drawn through the center of the diagram represents the equilibrium or rest position. The crest of a wave is the point on the medium that exhibits the maximum amount of positive or upward displacement from the rest position.

The amplitude of a wave refers to the maximum amount of displacement of a particle on the medium from its rest position. The wavelength of a wave is simply the length of one complete wave cycle. Compression is a point on a medium through which a longitudinal wave is traveling which has the maximum density.

A rarefaction is a point on a medium through which a longitudinal wave is traveling which has the minimum density. While a transverse wave has an alternating pattern of crests and troughs, a longitudinal wave has an alternating pattern of compressions and rarefactions. The frequency is the number of complete vibration cycles of a medium per a given amount of time.

The period of a wave is the time for a particle on a medium to make one complete vibration cycle. Units of time are seconds. The period is the reciprocal of the frequency and vice versa. In equation form, this is expressed as follows. Since the symbol f is used for frequency and the symbol T is used for period, these equations are also expressed as:.

Amplitude and Energy. The amount of energy carried by a wave is related to the amplitude of the wave. High amplitude characterizes a high-energy wave; a low energy wave is characterized by low amplitude. The energy imparted to a pulse will only affect the amplitude of that pulse. Speed of a Wave. The speed of a wave depends upon the properties of the medium. Even though the wave speed is calculated by multiplying wavelength by frequency, an alteration in wavelength does not affect wave speed.

Rather, an alteration in wavelength affects the frequency in an inverse manner. When a wave undergoes reflection, it remains within the medium and merely reverses its direction of travel. That is, by reflecting back to the original location, the wave has traveled a distance that is equal to twice the length of the slinky. Reflection phenomenons are commonly observed with sound waves. When you let out a holler within a canyon, you often hear the echo of the holler.

The sound wave travels through the medium air in this case , reflects off the canyon wall and returns to its origin you ; the result is that you hear the echo the reflected sound wave of your holler. If an echo is heard one second after the holler and reflects off canyon walls that are a distance of meters away, then what is the speed of the wave? As a wave travels through a medium, it will often reach the end of the medium and encounter an obstacle or perhaps another medium through which it could travel.

The behavior of a wave or pulse upon reaching the end of a medium is referred to as boundary behavior. When one medium ends, another medium begins; the interface of the two media is referred to as the boundary and the behavior of a wave at that boundary is described as its boundary behavior.

Incident wave is the original wave that is traveling toward the boundary. Reflected wave is the portion of the incident wave that reflects off the boundary and returns into the original medium. Transmitted wave is the portion of the incident wave that travels into the new medium. When a pulse reaches a boundary is can reflect two different ways.

If the pulse is going from a denser medium to a less dense medium then it will reflect back upright. If a pulse is going from a less dense medium to a more dense medium is will reflect back inverted. That is, if it was originally a crest, it will reflect and return as a trough. Similarly, if it was a trough it will reflect and return as a crest. The principle of superposition is sometimes stated as follows:. When two waves interfere, the resulting displacement of the medium at any location is the algebraic sum of the displacements of the individual waves at that same location.

Wave interference is the phenomenon that occurs when two waves meet while traveling along the same medium.