I know that polarization only occurs in transverse waves and polarization of light occurs as EM wave is a transverse wave. But sound waves are both transverse and longitudinal in solids. So can polarization occur for the transverse part? But we cannot stop the sound wave from propagating by any medium except vacuum. Because it will propagate through the stopping medium(like an analyzer but for sound).
Even if it gets polarized somehow(I don't think it can get polarized) then how can we observe it, since any sound reaching our eardrums will be longitudinal as the medium in front of our eardrums will be air, and so no polarization will occur in longitudinal waves.
See the 7th and 8th line in this image(source:- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(waves)).
I am a little confused now.
P.S. This may seem as a possible duplicate but all other answers didn't clarify my doubt.
EDIT:- Based on the answers, it seems that shear waves can be polarized. So my question is how to polarize these shear waves?
Best Answer
"Sound" is a pressure phenomenon, and has no polarization.
It is possible to send acoustic shear waves through an elastic solid (and that transverse component can have a direction) - but not through a gas.
Just to confuse you more - in an anisotropic medium, different directions of shear may propagate at different velocities, resulting in an apparent rotation of the direction over time (and in fact it can go from linear to circular polarization, etc).