Question

Sound travels as .......... waves consisting of compressions and .......... .

Answer 1

longitudinal, rarefaction

Sound waves in air (and any fluid medium) are longitudinal waves because particles of the medium through which the sound is transported vibrate parallel to the direction that the sound wave moves. ... This causes the air molecules to the right of the string to be compressed into a small region of space.

Sound waves are composed of compression and rarefaction patterns. Compression happens when molecules are densely packed together. Alternatively, rarefaction happens when molecules are distanced from one another.