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medium with gradually varying properties. For example, sound waves are known to refract when
traveling over water
Diffraction: the bending of waves around small* obstacles and the spreading out of
waves beyond small* openings.
Interference in Sound Waves. When two sound waves occur at the same time and are in the same
phase, i.e., when the condensations of the two coincide and hence their rarefactions also, the waves
reinforce each other and the sound becomes louder. This is known as constructive interference.
Two traveling waves which exist in the same medium will interfere with each other. If
their amplitudes add, the interference is said to be constructive interference,
and destructive interference if they are "out of phase" and subtract. Patterns of
destructive and constructive interference may lead to "dead spots" and "live spots" in
auditorium acoustics.
A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing a large number of
reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is absorbed by the surfaces of objects in the
space which could include furniture and people, and air.