Eli5: what happens to the energy created by mechanical/sound waves in a vacuum?

Question

I know that mechanical waves need a medium to travel through, but what happens when there is no medium and how does it it follow the first law of thermodynamics ?

In: Physics

Answer 1

return to sender. if there’s nothing to collide with outside and the vibration is not enough to knock the surface atoms free then the only way to go is for everything to spring back into the material where the vibration originated.