Posted by Steve Simon on January 17, 2013, 4:21 pm, in reply to "Re: Sound Polarisation"
Later on in the term we will study a microscopic model of vibrations in solids (including quantum mechanics), so hopefully things will get more clear later on. However, for now, maybe the following will help.
As shown in the top cartoon here,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longitudinal_wave
to create a longitudinal polarized wave you need to take an entire row of atoms and temporarily push it closer to the the next row of atoms. This will launch a longitudinal sound wave.
Launching a transverse wave is more difficult. Looking at this cartoon
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transverse_wave
You need to take a row of atoms and temporarily displace it within its own plane.
For your example of two spheres, I think you are correct that the oscillation of the distance between the two spheres is essentially analogous to the longitudinal wave (since it moves the atoms in the direction of their separation). With two atoms, there is no good analogy of a transverse wave... you would need to think about more atoms (and we will do this later on!)
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