If Milo is measuring energy waves in science class and he finds one that has more energy then another, are the particles in that wave closer or farther apart then in a wave with less energy?
Places where particles of a medium crowd closer together are called compressions, and places where the particles spread farther apart are called rarefactions. The more energy the wave has, the closer together the particles are in compressions and the farther apart they are in rarefactions.