Going with the flow

Waves are probably one of my favorite things. Pretty waves in art, sound waves that bump rap, light waves that let me watch my movie marathons, and even waves in the beautiful ocean. They are all around us. In physics, a wave is disturbance or oscillation that travels through matter/space, accompanied by a transfer of energy. Wave motion transfers energy from one point to another. My favorite type of waves are sound. Sound is a mechanical wave that is created by a vibrating object, which is probably why you see speakers vibrating. For a sound wave traveling through air, the vibrations of the particles are best described as longitudinal. Longitudinal waves are waves in which the motion of the individual particles of the medium is in a direction that is parallel to the direction of energy transport.