SOUND WAVES

1. How can an object move with respect to an observer so that the sound from
it is not shifted in frequency?
Answer: For the sound from a source not to shift in frequency, the radial
velocity of the source relative to the observer must be zero; that is, the
source must not be moving toward or away from the observer. The source
can be moving in a plane perpendicular to the line between it and the
observer. Other possibilities: The source and observer might both have zero
velocity. They might have equal velocities relative to the medium. The source
might be moving around the observer on a sphere of constant radius. Even
if the source speeds up on the sphere, slows down, or stops, the frequency
heard will be equal to the frequency emitted by the source.

2. Older auto-focus cameras sent out a pulse of sound and measured the time
interval required for the pulse to reach an object, reflect off of it, and return
to be detected. Can air temperature affect the camera’s focus? New cameras
use a more reliable infrared system.
Answer: The speed of sound in air is proportional to the square-root of the
absolute temperature, √T. The speed of sound is greater in warmer air, so
the pulse from the camera would return sooner than it would on a cooler
day from an object at the same distance. The camera would interpret an
object as being closer than it actually is on a hot day.

3. A friend sitting in her car far down the road waves to you and beeps her horn
at the same moment. How far away must she be for you to calculate the
speed of sound to two significant figures by measuring the time interval
required for the sound to reach you?
Answer: The speed of sound to two significant figures is 340 m/s. Let’s
assume that you can measure time to 1/10 second by using a stopwatch. To
get a speed to two significant figures, you need to measure a time of at least
1.0 seconds. Since d = vt, the minimum distance is 340 meters.

4. How can you determine that the speed of sound is the same for all
frequencies by listening to a band or orchestra?
 Answer: When listening, you are approximately the same distance from all
of the members of the group. If different frequencies traveled at different
speeds, then you might hear the higher pitched frequencies before you
heard the lower ones produced at the same time.

5. Explain how the distance to a lightning bolt (Fig. CQ17.5) can be determined
by counting the seconds between the flash and the sound of thunder.
Answer: The speed of light is so high that the arrival of the flash is practically
simultaneous with the lightning discharge. Thus, the delay between the flash
and the arrival of the sound of thunder is the time sound takes to travel the
distance separating the lightning from you. By counting the seconds between
the flash and thunder and knowing the approximate speed of sound in air,
you have a rough measure of the distance to the lightning bolt.

6.You are driving toward a cliff and honk your horn. Is there a Doppler shift
of the sound when you hear the echo? If so, is it like a moving source or a
moving observer? What if the reflection occurs not from a cliff, but from the
forward edge of a huge alien spacecraft moving toward you as you drive?
Answer: Both. There are actually two Doppler shifts. The first shift arises
from the source (you) moving toward the observer (the cliff). The second
arises from the observer (you) moving toward the source (the cliff). If,
instead of a cliff, there is a spacecraft moving toward you, then there are
shifts due to moving source (you) and moving observer (the spacecraft)
before reflection, and moving source (the spacecraft) and moving observer
(you) after reflection.

7.The radar systems used by police to detect speeders are sensitive to the
Doppler shift of a pulse of microwaves. Discuss how this sensitivity can be
used to measure the speed of a car.
Answer: A beam of radio waves of known frequency is sent toward a
speeding car, which reflects the beam back to a detector in the police car.
The amount the returning frequency has been shifted depends on the
velocity of the oncoming car.

8. The Tunguska event. On June 30, 1908, a meteor

burned up and exploded in the atmosphere above
the Tunguska River valley in Siberia. It knocked down trees over thousands
of square kilometers and started a forest fire, but produced no crater and
apparently caused no human casualties. A witness sitting on his doorstep
outside the zone of falling trees recalled events in the following sequence.
He saw a moving light in the sky, brighter than the Sun and descending at a
low angle to the horizon. He felt his face become warm. He felt the ground
shake. An invisible agent picked him up and immediately dropped him about
a meter from where he had been seated. He heard a very loud protracted
rumbling. Suggest an explanation for these observations and for the order in
which they happened.
Answer: Our brave Siberian saw the first wave he encountered, light
traveling at 3.00 × 108 m/s. At the same moment, infrared as well as visible
light began warming his skin, but some time was required to raise the
temperature of the outer skin layers before he noticed it. The meteor
produced compressional waves in the air and in the ground. The wave in the
ground, which can be called either sound or a seismic wave, traveled much
faster than the wave in air, since the ground is much stiffer against
compression. Our witness received it next and noticed it as a little
earthquake. He was no doubt unable to distinguish the P and S waves from
each other. The first air compression wave he received was a shock wave
with an amplitude on the order of meters. It transported him off his
doorstep. Then he could hear some additional direct sound, reflected sound,
and perhaps the sound of the falling trees.

9. A sonic ranger is a device that determines the distance to an object by

sending out an ultrasonic sound pulse and measuring the time interval
required for the wave to return by reflection from the object. Typically, these
devices cannot reliably detect an object that is less than half a meter from
the sensor. Why is that?
Answer: If an object is a half meter from the sonic ranger, then the sensor
would have to measure how long it would take for a sound pulse to travel
one meter. Because sound of any frequency moves at about 343 m/s, the
sonic ranger would have to be able to measure a time difference of under
0.003 seconds. This small time measurement is possible with modern
electronics, but it would be more expensive to outfit sonic rangers with the
more sensitive equipment than it is to print “do not use to measure distances
less than 1/2 meter” in the users’ manual.

SUPERPOSITION AND STANDING WAVES

1. A crude model of the human throat is that of a pipe open at

both ends with a vibrating source to introduce the sound into
the pipe at one end. Assuming the vibrating source produces
a range of frequencies, discuss the effect of changing the
pipe’s length.
Answer: The resonant frequency depends on the length of the
pipe. Thus, changing the length of the pipe will cause different
frequencies to be emphasized in the resulting sound.

2. When two waves interfere constructively or destructively, is

there any gain or loss in energy in the system of the waves?
Explain.
Answer: No. The total energy of the pair of waves remains the
same. Energy missing from zones of destructive interference
appears in zones of constructive interference.

3. Explain how a musical instrument such as a piano may be

tuned by using the phenomenon of beats.
Answer: What is needed is a tuning fork—or other pure-tone
generator—of the desired frequency. Strike the tuning fork
and pluck the corresponding string on the piano at the same
 time. If they areprecisely in tune, you will hear a single pitch
with no amplitude modulation. If the two frequences are a bit
off, you will hear beats. As they vibrate, retune the piano
string until the beat frequency goes to zero.

4. What limits the amplitude of motion of a real vibrating system

that is driven at one of its resonant frequencies?
Answer: Damping, and nonlinear effects in the vibration,
transform the energy of vibration into internal energy.

5. A tuning fork by itself produces a faint sound. Explain how

each of the following methods can be used to obtain a louder
sound from it. Explain also any effect on the time interval for
which the fork vibrates audibly. (a) holding the edge of a sheet
of paper against one vibrating tine (b) pressing the handle of
the tuning fork against a chalkboard or a tabletop (c) holding
the tuning fork above a column of air of properly chosen
length as in Example 18.6 (d) holding the tuning fork close to
an open slot cut in a sheet of foam plastic or cardboard (with
the slot similar in size and shape to one tine of the fork and
the motion of the tines perpendicular to the sheet).
Answer: (a) The tuning fork hits the paper repetitively to make
a sound like a buzzer, and the paper efficiently moves the
surrounding air. The tuning fork will vibrate audibly for a
shorter time.
(b) Instead of just radiating sound very softly into the
surrounding air, the tuning fork makes the chalkboard vibrate.
With its large area this stiff sounding board radiates sound
into the air with higher power. So it drains away the fork’s
energy of vibration faster and the fork stops vibrating sooner.
 (c) The tuning fork in resonance makes the column of air
vibrate, especially at the antinode of displacement at the top
of the tube. Its area is larger than that of the fork tines, so it
radiates louder sound into the environment. The tuning fork
will not vibrate for so long.
(d) The cardboard acts to cut off the path of air flow from the
front to the back of a single tine. When a tine moves forward,
the high pressure air in front of the tine can simply move to
fill in the lower pressure area behind the tine. This “sloshing”
of the air back and forth does not contribute to sound
radiation and results in low intensity of sound actually leaving
the tine. By cutting off this “sloshing” path by bringing the
cardboard near, the tine becomes a more efficient radiator.
This is the same theory as that involved with placing
loudspeakers on baffles. A speaker enclosure for a
loudspeaker is equivalent to an infinite baffle because there
is no path the high pressure air can find to cancel the lower
pressure air on the other side of the speaker.

6. An airplane mechanic notices that the sound from a twin-

engine aircraft rapidly varies in loudness when both engines
are running. What could be causing this variation from loud to
soft?
Answer: The loudness varies because of beats. The propellers
are rotating at
slightly different frequencies.

7. Despite a reasonably steady hand, a person often spills his

coffee when carrying it to his seat. Discuss resonance as a
 possible cause of this difficulty and devise a means for
preventing the spills.
Answer: Walking makes the person’s hand vibrate a little. If
the frequency of this motion is equal to the natural frequency
of coffee sloshing from side to side in the cup, then a large-
amplitude vibration of the coffee will build up in resonance.
To get off resonance and back to the normal case of a small-
amplitude disturbance producing a small-amplitude result,
the person can walk faster, walk slower, or get a larger or
smaller cup. You do not need a cover on your cup.

8. A soft-drink bottle resonates as air is blown across its top.

What happens to the resonance frequency as the level of fluid
in the bottle decreases?
Answer: Consider the level of fluid in the bottle to be adjusted
so that the air column above it resonates at the first harmonic.
This is given by f = v/4L. This equation indicates that as the
length L of the column increases (fluid level decreases), the
resonant frequency decreases.

9. Does the phenomenon of wave interference apply only to

sinusoidal waves?
Answer: No. Waves with all waveforms interfere. Waves with
other wave shapes are also trains of disturbance that add
together when waves from different sources move through
the same medium at the same time.
 THE FIRST LAW OF THERMODYNAMICS
1. Rub the palm of your hand on a metal surface for about 30 seconds.
Place the palm of your other hand on an unrubbed portion of the
surface and then on the rubbed portion. The rubbed portion will
feel warmer. Now repeat this process on a wood surface. Why does
the temperature difference between the rubbed and unrubbed
portions of the wood surface seem larger than for the metal
surface?
Answer: Rubbing a surface results in friction converting kinetic
energy to thermal energy. Metal, being a good thermal conductor,
allows energy to transfer swiftly out of the rubbed area to the
surrounding areas, resulting in a swift fall in temperature. Wood,
being a poor conductor, permits a slower rate of transfer, so the
temperature of the rubbed area does not fall as swiftly.

2. You need to pick up a very hot cooking pot in your kitchen. You
have a pair of cotton oven mitts. To pick up the pot most
comfortably, should you soak them in cold water or keep them dry?
Answer: Keep them dry. The air pockets in the pad conduct energy
by heat, but only slowly. Wet pads would absorb some energy in
warming up themselves, but the pot would still be hot and the
water would quickly conduct a lot of energy right into you.

3. What is wrong with the following statement: “Given any two

bodies, the one with the higher temperature contains more heat.”
Answer: Heat is a method of transferring energy, not energy
contained in an object. Further, a low-temperature object with
large mass, or an object made of a material with high specific heat,
can contain more internal energy than a higher-temperature
object.
4. Why is a person able to remove a piece of dry aluminum foil from
a hot oven with bare fingers, whereas a burn results if there is
moisture on the foil?
Answer: There are three properties to consider here: thermal
conductivity, specific heat, and mass. With dry aluminum, the
thermal conductivity of aluminum is much greater than that of
(dry) skin. This means that the internal energy in the aluminum can
more readily be transferred to the atmosphere than to your
fingers. In essence, your skin acts as a thermal insulator. If the
aluminum is wet, it can wet the outer layer of your skin to make it
into a good thermal conductor; then more energy from the
aluminum can transfer to you. Further, the water itself, with
additional mass and with a relatively large specific heat compared
to aluminum, can be a significant source of extra energy to burn
you. In practical terms, when you let go of a hot, dry piece of
aluminum foil, the energy transfer by heat immediately ends.
When you let go of a hot and wet piece of aluminum foil, the hot
water sticks to your skin, continuing the heat transfer, and resulting
in more energy transfer by heat to you!

5. Using the first law of thermodynamics, explain why the total energy
of an isolated system is always constant.
Answer: If the system is isolated, no energy enters or leaves the
system by heat, work, or other transfer processes. Within the
system energy can change from one form to another, but since
energy is conserved these transformations cannot affect the total
amount of energy. The total energy is constant.
6. In 1801, Humphry Davy rubbed together pieces of ice inside an
icehouse. He made sure that nothing in the environment was at a
higher temperature than the rubbed pieces. He observed the
production of drops of liquid water. Make a table listing this and
other experiments or processes to illustrate each of the following
situations. (a) A system can absorb energy by heat, increase in
internal energy, and increase in temperature. (b) A system can
absorb energy by heat and increase in internal energy without an
increase in temperature. (c) A system can absorb energy by heat
without increasing in temperature or in internal energy. (d) A
system can increase in internal energy and in temperature without
absorbing energy by heat. (e) A system can increase in internal
energy without absorbing energy by heat or increasing in
temperature.
Answer:
(a) Warm a pot of coffee on a hot stove.
(b) Place an ice cube at 0ºC in warm water—the ice will absorb
energy while melting, but not increase in temperature.
(c) Let a high-pressure gas at room temperature slowly expand by
pushing on a piston. Energy comes out of the gas by work in a
constant-temperature expansion as the same quantity of energy
flows by heat in from the surroundings.
(d) Warm your hands by rubbing them together. Heat your tepid
coffee in a microwave oven. Energy input by work, by
electromagnetic radiation, or by other means, can all alike produce
a temperature increase.
(e) Davy’s experiment is an example of this process.

7. It is the morning of a day that will become hot. You just purchased
drinks for a picnic and are loading them, with ice, into a chest in the
 back of your car. (a) You wrap a wool blanket around the chest.
Does doing so help to keep the beverages cool, or should you
expect the wool blanket to warm them up? Explain your answer.
(b) Your younger sister suggests you wrap her up in another wool
blanket to keep her cool on the hot day like the ice chest. Explain
your response to her.
Answer: (a) Yes, wrap the blanket around the ice chest. The
environment is warmer than the ice, so the blanket prevents
energy transfer by heat from the environment to the ice.
(b) Explain to your little sister that her body is warmer than the
environment and requires energy transfer by heat into the air to
remain at a fixed temperature. The blanket will prevent this
conduction and cause her to feel warmer, not cool like the ice.

8. In usually warm climates that experience a hard freeze, fruit

growers will spray the fruit trees with water, hoping that a layer of
ice will form on the fruit. Why would such a layer be advantageous?
Answer: Ice is a poor thermal conductor, and it has a high specific
heat. The idea behind wetting fruit is that a coating of ice prevents
the fruit from cooling below the freezing temperature even as the
air outside is colder, and also to protect plants from frost. When
frost melts it takes its heat from the fruit, and kills it. When ice
melts it takes heat from the air, so it acts as insulation for the fruit.

9. Suppose you pour hot coffee for your guests, and one of them
wants it with cream. He wants the coffee to be as warm as possible
several minutes later when he drinks it. To have the warmest
coffee, should the person add the cream just after the coffee is
poured or just before drinking? Explain.
 Answer: The person should add the cream immediately when the
coffee is poured. Then the smaller temperature difference
between coffee and environment will reduce the rate of energy
transfer out of the cup during the several minutes.

10. When camping in a canyon on a still night, a camper notices

that as soon as the sun strikes the surrounding peaks, a breeze
begins to stir. What causes the breeze?
Answer: The sunlight hitting the peaks warms the air immediately
around them. This air, which is slightly warmer and less dense than
the surrounding air, rises, as it is buoyed up by cooler air from the
valley below. The air from the valley flows up toward the sunny
peaks, creating the morning breeze.

11. Pioneers stored fruits and vegetables in underground cellars.

In winter, why did the pioneers place an open barrel of water
alongside their produce?
Answer: Because water has a high specific heat, it can absorb or
lose quite a bit of energy and not experience much change in
temperature. The water would act as a means of preventing the
temperature in the cellar from varying much so that stored goods
would neither freeze nor become too warm.

12. Is it possible to convert internal energy to mechanical energy?

Explain with examples.
Answer: The steam locomotive engine is one perfect example of
turning internal energy into mechanical energy. Liquid water is
heated past the point of vaporization. Through a controlled
mechanical process, the expanding water vapor is allowed to push
a piston. The translational kinetic energy of the piston is usually
turned into rotational kinetic energy of the drive wheel.