Sound

 
Any object that vibrates will produce sound. Human hearing has a frequency response
of 20 – 20,000 Hz. Frequencies below audibility are called infrasonic and those above
audibility are called ultrasonic.
Sound is a longitudinal wave and propagates in the air as pressure variations of the air
molecules. A medium is requires in order to transmit sound. Solids and liquids are good
conductors of sound and air is a poor conductor. Generally, the speed of sound increases
with the density of the medium.
The speed of sound is much less than light. A rule of thumb for thunder and lightning
(which are produced simultaneously) is that each five second delay in the thunder adds
another mile to the distance to the storm. The speed of sound depends on humidity,
temperature, and wind speed. Thankfully for the music lovers among us, the speed of
sound does not depend on the frequency. At sea level and 0° C in dry air the speed of
sound is 1090 ft/s or 330 m/s. This value increases with temperature, density, and
humidity.
Reflection of sound takes place when the sound wave hits a boundary. Some of the
consequences of sound reflections are echoes, reverberation (prolonged sound due to
multiple reflections off of many surfaces), or the rumble of distant thunder. At the
boundary some of the wave will reflect and some will be absorbed. The study of sound
reflections and absorptions is called acoustics.
Sound waves can also refract. Refraction occurs when part of the wave travels at a
different rate than other parts. The changes in speed show up as a bending of the wave
front. Consider sound waves moving into a region where warm air is near the surface
and cool air is above. Since sound speed increases with temperature, the part of the wave
in the warm air moves faster than the part in the cooler air. This causes the wave to bend
toward the cooler region. The sound goes up. If the sound is distant thunder and the
thermal conditions are like the example here, the thunder may not be heard because the
sound goes over your head. Sonar operators must be very aware of this in maneuvering a
submarine. It is possible to “hide” under a cell of sea water of different temperature.
Other uses of the refraction of sound are in medicine (ultrasound) and the
communications of whales and dolphins.
Sound also carries energy (information), but much less than the energy carried by
light. The ear must be extremely sensitive in order to detect the minute amounts of sound
energy. Most media absorb high frequencies much better than low frequencies. Thus the
bass notes are the ones that come through from your neighbor’s room.
The set of frequencies that an object emits when stimulated to vibrate are called the
natural frequencies. The natural frequencies are determined by the composition, size,
and shape of the object. But objects can also be forced to vibrate at frequencies that are
not in the set of natural frequencies. This is exactly what the sounding board of a musical
instrument does. And because of the large surface area exposed to the air, the sounding
board can vibrate many times the air molecules of the source, thus amplifying the sound.
We can combine the last two ideas and force a vibration at the natural frequency of an
object. This condition is called resonance. Resonance will always result in a greatly
increased amplitude – remember the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster. But smaller scale
examples abound, from the frequencies required to break glass, to the vibrations forced
onto a wine glass that cause it to “sing.”
Several important demonstrations showed what happens to systems at resonance.
When a guitar string is plucked, the lowest frequency that can be supported has a
wavelength of twice the length of the string. This mode of vibration has an antinode in
the string center and a node at each end. Gently touching the vibrating string at the center
damped out this low frequency, but sound was still present. What we heard was other
frequencies that are present when the string is plucked. The next frequency has a
wavelength exactly half as long as the lowest frequency, or the length of the string. This
second harmonic has a node in the string center, and was thus unaffected by touching the
center of the string. A similar phenomenon was demonstrated by making a rod “sing”
while holding it at the exact center. The frequency we heard had a node at the center and
was unaffected by holding the rod there.
Since sound is a wave disturbance, it is subject to interference effects. When crests
meet troughs, destructive interference results. This can lead to acoustical dead spots in
concert halls, if the destructive interference is persistent. Today we can even design
noise control devices that effectively null out noise by producing another noise source
exactly out of phase with the original.
When two frequencies are produced that are close in frequency, the superposition of
the two waves produces a pattern of large amplitude, constructive interference areas
followed by low amplitude, destructive interference areas. It sounds like beats and the
frequency of the beats is the difference in frequency between the two sound waves. If the
two tones are rather widely separated (say 10 Hz), the effect is called tremolo. As the
two frequencies approach one another, the beats get farther apart. This becomes an
effective way of tuning musical instruments.
Radio broadcasts are made in two different frequency bands. AM or amplitude
modulation broadcasts in the band from 535 to 1605 kHz, whereas FM or frequency
modulation broadcasts over frequencies from 88 to 108 MHz. AM signals take
advantage of the fact that the Earth’s ionosphere reflects these frequencies. The signals
are transmitted up to the ionosphere to reflect off again and return to the surface. Thus
AM stations can be heard at great distance. FM signals, by contrast, are line-of-sight and
fade as the curvature of the Earth’s surface makes the antenna disappear below the
observer’s horizon.