Posted by cautious undergrad on January 14, 2013, 4:17 pm, in reply to "Re: Sound Polarisation"
I'm not certain if this is correct, but if you remember that the atoms aren't 1D potentials then it makes sense that transverse waves can propagate. Using a (very) simplistic picture of the atoms as hard spheres, then the transverse vibration would obviously exert a force on neighbouring atom - but perhaps with a weaker effect than for longitudinal polarisation as the atoms' potential wells only overlap a little at the edges, rather than a fully 'head-on' push. Does that make sense?
Please correct me if I'm wrong, and forgive the lack of hard physics - I thought I'd be brave and give an intuitive response.
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