Purpose: To demonstrate transverse and longitudinal waves.

Long thin spring, slinky, nylon cord

For transverse waves, tie one end of the long spring to a fixed object and shake the other end. With a little practice, you can easily generate several modes of standing waves. (It's sometimes more effective to hold the spring near the middle, rather than using the whole spring.) You can generate horizontal transverse waves by stretching the slinky across the floor and shaking the end horizontally. (This approach presents obvious visibility problems in most classrooms.)

You can generate longitudinal waves in the slinky as follows: Tie the cord to a fixed object, put the other end of the cord through the slinky, stretch the slinky along the cord, stretch the cord tightly, shake the end of the slinky parallel to the cord. Alternatively, you can stretch the slinky along the floor or on a long table.

References:

Manual: None