Elastic wave

Okay, let's pretend you are in a big room with your friends and you want to play a game. You like throwing a ball around, but the room has a lot of things in it, like chairs and tables that might get in the way. But luckily, there is a way you can still play with your ball without it hitting anything in the room.

You see, when you throw the ball, it makes something called an "elastic wave." This means that the ball's energy travels through the air, but it also makes the air move back and forth in a special way. It's like when you jump on a trampoline and it bounces you back up again. The trampoline is elastic, which means it can stretch and then go back to its original shape.

So, when you throw the ball in the room, it makes an elastic wave that travels through the air until it hits something, like a wall or a ceiling. When it hits something, the wave bounces off and comes back toward you like an echo. This is why you can hear your voice when you talk in a big room, because the sound waves bounce off the walls and come back to you.

But the elastic waves that the ball makes are different than sound waves. They travel through solids, liquids, and gases, which means they can go through walls and even the ground! This is how we use things like sonar to find things deep underwater or earthquakes to measure how the earth is moving.

So, the next time you play with a ball or jump on a trampoline, remember that you are making elastic waves that travel through the air and bounce back to you. And who knows, maybe one day you will grow up to be a scientist who studies these waves and how they move through the world!