CQ7

=How are longitudinal and transverse waves different? How are they the same? =

By: Anjelica Fiamma, Adele Flick, and Dave Iannacone

In a transverse wave, as the wave is moving in one direction, it is creating a disturbance in a different direction. In longitudinal waves, if sound waves are moving south, the disturbance that they are creating is making the air molecules vibrate north-and-south not east-and-west, or up-and-down. A similarity is that they both carry energy from one to the other. They also both have a wavelength.



Both longitudinal and transverse motion may be found in solid mediums. Longitudinal waves can travel through liquids, but transverse waves can only travel on the surface of water; ripples on the surface of a pond would be an example of transverse waves. This is because there is no way for the wave to move in a perpendicular direction.Longitudinal waves are able to travel through a gas medium,however transverse waves cannot propagate in a gas or a liquid because there is no mechanism for driving motion perpendicular to the propagation of the wave.

A sound wave is an example of a longitudinal wave. Earthquakes can travel in both longitudinal and transverse waves.