Sound

Production: sound waves come from a vibrating source for example a loudspeaker. As the
loudspeaker cone vibrates, it moves forwards and backwards, which squashes and stretches
the air in front. As a result, a series of compressions (squashes) and rarefactions (stretches)
travel out through the air, these are sound waves.
Sound waves are longitudinal: they have compressions and rarefactions and oscillate
backwards and forwards.

Compressions are high pressure sections of the wave whilst Rarefactions are low
pressure sections of the wave.
Humans can hear frequencies between 20 and 20 000Hz.
Sound waves need a medium (a material) to travel through thus, they can’t travel in a
vacuum.

Experiment: When sound reflects off of a wall, it will come back to you. This is what you hear
as an echo (reflection of sound).

• If you know the distance between you and the wall, and measure how long it takes for
the echo to sound, you can figure out the speed of sound in air.
• Remember to take into account that the sound has gone there and back.
2𝑑
So speed, 𝑣 =
∆𝑡
To reduce the effect of echoes in buildings, walls are roughened up with padding and the
floors are covered with rugs or carpets. This is to scatter the incident sound wave so that
the reflected sound is reduced.
Que: A man stood in front of a tall cliff. He fired a pistol into the air and started his stopwatch
simultaneously. After 3 s, he heard the echo of the pistol shot. Find his distance from the cliff.

Determining the Speed of Sound

Characteristics of Sound

➢ The following table shows the main characteristics of sound and the factors affecting
these characteristics:
 Speed of sound is highest in solids (concrete: 5000m/s) then in liquids (pure water:
1400m/s) and slowest in gases (air: 330m/s).
In solids, the atoms are more closely packed together, as compared to liquids and gases.
Hence, sound travels the fastest in solids.

Ultrasound

➢ Ultrasound is the sound with frequencies that are greater than 20 000 Hz.
➢ The audible range of sound for humans is between 20 Hz and 20 KHz, hence, humans
cannot hear ultrasound.
➢ Some applications of ultrasound are:

➢ Ultrasonic echoes are used to determine depth of seas or lakes in the fishing industry.
Quality of a note

✓ The same note on different instruments sounds different; we say the notes differ in quality
or timbre.
✓ The difference arises because no instrument (except a tuning fork and a signal generator)
emits a ‘pure’ note, i.e., of one frequency.
✓ Notes consist of a main or fundamental frequency mixed with others, called overtones,
which are usually weaker and have frequencies that are exact multiples of the fundamental.
The number and strength of the overtones decides the quality of a note.
✓ A violin has more and stronger higher overtones than a piano.