most simple and easy to remember yet precise.
2007-05-20 04:45:13 · 5 answers · asked by Aaron A 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Physics
A transverse wave is one that oscillates at a right angle to the direction that it is moving.
2007-05-20 05:10:49 · answer #1 · answered by Hippocratic Oath 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If you have a slinky (those coiled springs that 'walk' down stairs) then you can easily see both kinds of waves.
Get hold of one end and have someone else hold the other end. Stretch out the slinky a bit so there's a reasonable distance between the two of you.
Longitudinal waves are what you get when you pull the slinky a bit toward you and then let it sping back toward the other person ... like a pulse of 'compression' racing toward the other end
Transverse waves are what you get if you shake your end up and down a bit - a crest travels quickly toward the other end.
So longitudinal waves act along the slinky and transverse act across the slinky.
It really is worth doing this experiment at least once to really see what is happening ... especially with the longitudinal wave: seeing a longitudinal wave in reality definitely helps in distinguishing it from the more usual transverse kind.
2007-05-21 07:38:28 · answer #2 · answered by DoctorBob 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A transverse wave is a wave that causes vibration in the medium in a perpendicular direction to its own motion. For example: if a wave moves along the x-axis, its disturbances are in the yz-plane. In other words, it causes medium disturbances across the two-dimensional plane that it is travelling in. Contrary to popular belief, transversal waves do not move up and down.
2007-05-21 07:00:14 · answer #3 · answered by Michael N 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
A wave whose local motion is transverse (across, at a right angle) to its direction of propagation.
Thus in the venerable example of a vibrated horizontal jumprope, the motion of a point on the rope is side-to-side, or up-and-down, or some vector combination of the two, while the wave moves along the rope. This puts it in contrast to a longitudinal wave such as sound, where the air molecules vibrate in a forward-and-backward direction relative to the direction the sound is traveling in.
2007-05-20 11:49:30 · answer #4 · answered by kirchwey 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its a wave that vibrates perpendicular to the way it is travelling...it causes a disturbance in the medium it is travelling in.
2007-05-20 11:55:28 · answer #5 · answered by xx4aLiNa5xx 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋