TRANSVERSE TRAVELING WAVES
Let’s return to our long rope. Someone standing near the system would see peaks
and valleys actually moving along the rope, in what’s called a traveling wave.
Transverse Wave
A transverse wave travels
(propogates) in a direction
perpendicular to the
direction in which the
median is vibrating.
Basically, the wave
oscillates perpendicularly
to its direction of travel.What features of the wave can we see in this point of view? Well, we can see the
points at which the rope has its maximum vertical displacement above the
horizontal; these points are called crests. The points at which the rope has its
maximum vertical displacement below the horizontal are called troughs. These
crests and troughs repeat themselves at regular intervals along the rope, and the
distance between two adjacent crests (or two adjacent troughs) is the length of one
wave, called the wavelength (λ, lambda). Also, the maximum displacement from
the horizontal equilibrium position of the rope is known as the amplitude (A) of the
wave. Be careful: A is just the distance from the “middle” to a crest, not from a
trough to a crest.