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
Something like, say, a tuning fork makes a sound because its vibration physically pushes the air around it back and forth. That movement is what you perceive as sound.
In a vacuum, the tuning fork doesn’t have to wiggle in a medium, so it just vibrates for longer. It doesn’t go on forever since deforming the metal produces a little bit of heat, which means that eventually the vibration will slow down to a halt.
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