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
Waves work by one bit moving, transferring it’s energy to the next bit, and then that bit moves and repeats the cycle.
If the waves were going through an “elastic,” medium like jello (or even a sheet of steel), then when the wave encountered the vacuum there would be nowhere else to transfer the energy to, so the wave would likely bounce back and continue in the opposite direction.
If the waves were going through particles like a gas, then since the particles on the edge dont have any more particles to transfer their energy to, they would just keep moving.
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