CATCH A WAVES and INFORMATION TRANSFER Heather C Hudak Le Crabtree Publishing Company www crabtree books com
WAVES in MOTION When you think of waves you probably think of waves that surfers ride in the ocean But water waves are just one type of wave Light waves create the colors you see with your eyes Sound waves make the sounds you hear with your ears Waves are vibrations or disturbances that travel through a medium or an empty space They transfer or move energy from one place to another in regular patterns HOW ARE WAVES MADE Matter is anything that takes up space and has mass Mass is the amount of material in an object Orange juice your television and the air around you are all forms of matter When a force is applied to matter it vibrates This changes the matter from its rest position by making it move up and down or side to side This creates waves Waves carry energy from the force They travel away from the source in the form of a wave The matter returns to its original position once the energy passes through it When the waves run out of energy they stop
When you knock on a door the place you hit vibrates The vibration makes the air around the door vibrate too The sound waves created by the vibrations carry the knocking sound to your ears When you stop knocking the vibrations stop too Without vibrations there are no sound waves You stop hearing the sound iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii WAVES TRANSFER INFORMATION There are many types of waves that transfer energy But did you know that some waves can also transfer information from one place to another Information is any type of data that can be put into a message national LLNL East or observed such as phone calls or text messages Telephones televisions and radios all use waves to send and receive
