You are on page 1of 2

What is sound?

We live at the bottom of a sea of air. As with the ocean, the farther down one goes, the
greater the density of molecules and the greater the pressure it exerts on us. The average
atmospheric pressure, as it is called, is measured in many different units, but the one
most people are familiar with is the barometric pressure (measured in millibars). Altitude,
temperature and weather conditions affect barometric pressure (low barometric pressure,
for example, is often associated with storm systems). If the particular pressure level
surrounding us remains steady, we experience silence. The individual air molecules
themselves always exhibit at least a minimum rate of motion without causing perceptible
pressure changes.
Sound is produced by a rapid variation in the average density or pressure of air molecules
above and below the current atmospheric pressure. We perceive sound as these pressure
fluctuations cause our eardrums to vibrate. When discussing sound, these usually minute
changes in atmospheric pressure are referred to as sound pressure and the fluctuations in
pressure as sound waves. Sound waves are produced by a vibrating body, be it an oboe
reed, guitar string, loudspeaker cone or jet engine. The vibrating sound source causes a
disturbance to the surrounding air molecules, causing them bounce off each other with a
force proportional to the disturbance. The energy of their interaction creates ripples of
more dense (higher pressure) to less dense (lower pressure) air molecules, with pressures
above and below the normal atmospheric pressure. When the molecules are pushed closer
together it is called compression; when they are pulled apart, it is called rarefaction. The
back and forth oscillation of pressure produces a sound waves.

Amazing factoid #1: The threshold of human hearing, or the softest


perceptible sound, corresponds to a pressure variation of less than a
billionth of the current atmospheric pressure
(though the threshold of hearing varies according to frequency, as you will see below).

A sound wave, which is not impeded by


another object,
propagates (or spreads)
out from the source as a sphere.

Cross-section of sound wave


expanding
outward from its source.

Pond ripples and vibrating strings are examples of


transverse waves, where the displacement of the
medium is perpendicular to the direction the wave
is traveling in.

Sound waves in air are longitudinal waves, in that the pulsating motion of the air is in
the direction the sound wave travels. Physicists classically demostrate this with the
Slinky model, in which a quick push on one end of a slinky will cause a longitudinal
wave to travel down its length. The wave can be seen as areas where the coils are closer
or farther apart from each other than would normally be in the Slinkys state of rest,
corresponding the compression and rarefaction of air molecules in sound. In a sound
wave, the actual air molecules do not travel far, but spread their kinetic energy or force to
adjacent molecules before bouncing back near their original position, much like a cue ball
striking another in billiards. A sound wave is also a form of a traveling wave, in that the
air molecules disturbed by the sound source are unlikely to be the ones hitting your
eardrum, but transfer their energy to other neighboring molecules.

You might also like