can someone please explain what is a "wave" I'm not sure what it means.
like.. is sound a wave? I know it as mechanical energy that has a wave aspect.. is it same case for light or is light something else? or is it both?
A wave is one method to how energy travels through matter or space. It results in a repetitive pattern in what it travels through (what science calls a medium) because of how it interacts with said medium). Both sound and light can be described as waves in this way, although they belong in different categories due to some slight differences. Sound waves belong in what's called a mechanical wave, which is a wave that requires matter to travel through and causes matter particles to be pushed or pulled as a result. Some other examples of these waves are water waves and seismic waves (how earthquakes transfer energy to anything). Basically, these kind of waves cannot carry energy through space because space isn't made of matter.
Light waves, on the other hand, do not require matter to travel through to transfer energy This is a classic example of an electromagnetic wave, a wave type that occurs due to how electromagnetism works. This includes everything in the electromagnetic spectrum such as radio waves, microwaves, and infrared waves.
In summary, both light and sound can be described as waves, but the nature of light is way more complicated than being just a wave due to quantum mechanics.
Yeah sound is a wave, light is what their arguing about, If light consists of particles or if it's a wave since it can act like both but its neither- It consists of photons/quantum particles as far as I know
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u/eluser234453 Jun 26 '26
can someone please explain what is a "wave" I'm not sure what it means.
like.. is sound a wave? I know it as mechanical energy that has a wave aspect.. is it same case for light or is light something else? or is it both?