Rate of energy transfer of a longitudinal wave?

AI Thread Summary
The discussion focuses on understanding the rate of energy transfer in longitudinal waves, particularly sound waves. It explains that the kinetic energy of a slice of air can be divided by time to determine this rate. When a sound wave interacts with water, it transfers energy, causing the water to heat up. If the wave is completely absorbed by the water, all its energy is transferred. For longitudinal waves, the total energy is often twice the kinetic energy, making the average rate of energy transfer calculable by dividing average energy by time.
coreluccio
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I'm reading about this now. Apparently dividing the expression for the kinetic energy that a slice of air possesses at a point in time by time gives you the rate of energy transfer of the wave. This makes no sense to me.
 
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The "rate" of anything is just diving anything by time (or taking the time derivative) by definition

Say you create a sound wave from a loudspeaker and blast it at a pool of water. The sound wave has some energy associated with it, because it consists of molecules bouncing around. You would find that the water heats up at a certain rate, because of the sound wave bouncing into the water and giving energy to it. If the water totally destroys the wave then all of the wave's energy is transferred. For many longitudinal waves, total energy is simply twice the kinetic energy, so dividing the average energy by time is the average rate of energy transfer
 
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