Types of Waves

Introduction

If you have ever witnessed a balloon pop up close, you may recall the loud ‘pop’ followed closely by a whooshing noise. In this image, a balloon was filled with smoke and then popped. If you look closely at it, you can see lines of thick and thin areas of smoke. Those lines are sound waves, pushing the smoke back and forth as the balloon suddenly deflates. In fact, if you pay attention to the world around you, you might observe many different things that people call waves. Whether it is a wave approaching the shore, a classmate shaking a jump rope, or the sound a popping balloon makes, you interact with waves on a regular basis. So, what do they have in common? What makes them all waves?

Scientists describe many different, and yet related, phenomena as waves. Each of these phenomena has certain characteristics that make it a wave. For example, all waves carry energy. This characteristic, among others, makes up a model of waves. Scientists use these characteristics to describe, compare, and make predictions about waves.

In this lesson, you will investigate several examples of waves. To distinguish between them, you will learn of different categories of waves. You will identify examples of waves from real life that fit within these different categories and explore how the same properties and concepts can apply to many different kinds of waves.