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I can believe that's not your homework. Because it doesn't make sense. Did you mean to say water? Water doesn't travel through matter, unless that matter has holes in it. And yes, there is stuff in space, just not all that much stuff.
Light is not water. It can be thought of as a wave, yes, but it's also a particle, and it travels though space as particles - photons. |
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If I answer this question, will there be peanut butter in my shoe tomorrow?
I'm sorry, but this doesn't make any sense. Water doesn't really travel through Matter... it can associate with compounds, and get tied up in bonds, or flow through pores in rocks and things. But it doesn't have anything to do with light and space. Light is energy, a wave and/or a particle, and it can travel through space because there is nothing in the way. |
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Water doesn't travel through matter, it is matter. Water could travel through space. It would actually be really fun to watch all the droplets scatter in every direction when you touched it.
Now to the meat of the question. There are two types of waves. Transverse waves and Longitudindal waves. All elctromagnetic waves (like light) are transverse waves and do not require a medium to travel through. Also note that a transerve wave's speed changes depending on what medium it is in (i.e. light travels slower in water... this is why refraction occurs). However, longitudinal waves (sound for instance) do require a medium to travel in. The reason for this is that longitudinal waves require a medium to compress to travel (which is why they are sometimes referred to as compression waves). A longitudinal wave is made up of compressed parts called "compressions" and elongated parts called "rarefactions". So longitudinal waves require a medium simply because they need something to compress and since nothing is available in space, they cannot travel through space (they need the compression because the wave motion is parallel to the wave direction). However, everything else can travel through space. |
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