Description

(or neck or port). A volume of air in and near the open hole vibrates because of the 'springiness' of the air inside. A common example is an empty bottle: the air inside vibrates when you blow across the top, as shown in the diagram at left. (It's a fun experiment, because of the surprisingly low and loud sound that results.)
Some small whistles are Helmholtz oscillators. The air in the body of a guitar acts almost like a Helmholtz resonator*. An ocarina is a slightly more complicated example, because for the higher notes it has several holes. Loudspeaker enclosures often use the Helmholtz resonance of the enclosure to boost the low frequency response. Here we analyse this oscillation, informally at first. Later, we derive the equation for the frequency of the Helmholtz resonance.

The vibration here is due to the 'springiness' of air: when you compress it, its pressure increases and it tends to expand back to its original volume. Consider a 'lump' of air at the neck of the bottle (shaded in the middle diagrams). The air jet can force this lump of air a little way down the neck, thereby compressing the air inside. That pressure now drives the 'lump' of air out but, when it gets to its original position, its momentum takes it on outside the body a small distance. This rarifies the air inside the body, which then sucks the 'lump' of air back in. It can thus vibrate like a mass on a spring (diagram at right). The jet of air from your lips is capable of deflecting alternately into the bottle and outside, and that provides the power to keep the oscillation going.