Longitudinal wave and seismic P-waves (created by earthquakes and explosions). In longitudinal waves, the displacement of the medium is parallel to the propagation of the wave, and waves can be either straight or round. A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases, is a good visualization. In the case of longitudinal harmonic sound waves, the frequency and wavelength can be described by the formula where: The quantity "x"/"c" is the time that the wave takes to travel the distance "x". The ordinary frequency ("f") of the wave is given by The wavelength
Standing wave line patterns are called Chladni figures. In three-dimensional resonators, such as musical instrument sound boxes and microwave cavity resonators, there are nodal surfaces. Standing wave ratio (SWR) is the ratio of the amplitude at the antinode (maximum) to the amplitude at the node (minimum). A pure standing wave will have an infinite SWR. It will also have a constant phase at any point in space (but it may undergo a 180° inversion every half cycle). A finite, non-zero SWR indicates a wave that is partially stationary and partially travelling. Such waves can be decomposed into two linearly superpositional components (assuming