What are some examples of longitudinal waves?

What are examples of real-life transverse and longitudinal waves?

• Answer:

  An example of a longitudinal wave is a sound wave. These waves are composed of compressions (where the waves are close to each-other), and rare-fractions (where the waves are farther away). For instance when you clap your hands, you are compressing the air particles in between your hands for a split second which makes the clapping noise you are familiar with. This is how speakers work, they hit the air thousands of times per second at various frequencies to make sounds. longitudinal waves need a medium to travel through such as air. In space longitudinal waves such as sound do not travel. transverse waves such as light or microwaves do not need a medium to travel through and travel at the speed of light (186,200 miles per second). They are made up of different frequency photons. The frequency of the photons determines whether the wave is an x-ray, a microwave, or visible light. Yes these are all the same wave at different frequencies.