Stadium Wave as Longitudinal Wave in Terms of Transmission

[Luris]

So, the common high school physics example of a transverse wave is a "stadium wave" ... but, I'm wondering if this is actually longitudinal in terms of particle transmission. Each particle (audience member) is only standing up/down. The particles/audience stay in place and don't propagate/run down the seats.

Light is (almost trivially) referred to as a transverse wave, but how do the photons "move"? In sound, the particles are disrupted... are the photons disrupted?

 

[0xDEADBEEF]

No the stadium wave is purely transversal. If you plug a guitar string it is also purely transversal. The wave may propagate back or forth or in a circle, but as long as the amplitude is perpendicular to the propagation direction, it is transversal. That is the whole point of the definition. The equivalent of a longitudinal wave for people is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQOYRr1ijrg" (look at the audience and enjoy the corny music :rofl: )

Edit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rRL3BwcoF8"

Photons work very different from other waves there is no medium and you shouldn't imagine one.

 

[NanakiXIII]

You're confusing some things. The people in the audience are not particles, they are the medium through which the wave travels. The "particle" is the bulge in the medium - the people standing - which propagates through the audience.

For light, photons are not - like gas atoms for sound - a medium. They are wave packets, like the bulge moving through the audience, and as such they propagate.