Some waves need a medium to travel through while others do not. Mechanical waves need a medium for the wave to travel through to transport energy. Ocean waves, jump ropes, pendulums, sound, and waves in a stadium are all examples of mechanical waves.
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Electromagnetic  waves do not need a medium to travel through. Light from the sun reaches up 93 million miles away by traveling though the vacuum of space because it’s an electromagnetic wave. The electromagnetic wave travels through the vacuum of space at the speed of light (299,792,458 m/s). These types of waves are made by vibrating charged particles, and we’re going to look at this more in depth in our next section on Light.

Matter waves are the ones you get to learn about when you study quantum physics, as they describe the way that matter (like a beam of electrons) under certain conditions acts like a wave. That’s way out of our scope here, but I want you to at least be aware that they exist.

Click here to go to next lesson on Properties of a Wave.

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