Class: IX

Subject: Science
Chapter-12
SOUND
 Do you like music?
 Everyday we hear from humans, birds,
bells,radio,televisions,
vehicles etc.
 It is the sound energy which help us to
hear.
 Sound is a form of energy which produces
a sensation of hearing in our ears.
 Sound is produced due to vibration of
different objects.
 Sound travels as a longitudinal wave through
a material medium.
 The medium can be solid, liquid or gas.
 Sound travels as successive compressions and
rarefactions in the medium
 Sound propagates in a medium as a series of
compressions (C) and rarefactions (R).
 In these waves the particles move back
and forth parallel to the direction of
propagation of the disturbance. Such waves
are called longitudinal waves.
 When a vibrating object moves forward, it
pushes and compresses the air in front of it
creating a region of high pressure. This
region is called a compression.
 When the vibrating object moves backwards,
it creates a region of low pressure called
rarefaction (R).
C R C R C R C R
 As the object moves back and forth rapidly, a series
of compressions and rarefactions is created in the
air. These make the sound wave that propagates
through the medium.
 Thepropagation of sound can be visualized
as propagation of density variations or
pressure variations in the medium.
 Sound cannot travel in vacuum.
 Sound is a mechanical wave and needs a
material medium like air, water, steel etc.
for its propagation. It cannot travel through
vacuum.
 Sound waves are characterised by the motion
of particles in the medium and are called
mechanical waves.
 Sound is a mechanical wave and
needs a medium for propagation.

Belljar experiment can prove this

nature of sound wave.
. Cork

Bell jar

Electric bell
 The change in density from one maximum value
to the minimum value and again to the
maximum value makes one complete
oscillation.
 The distance between two consecutive
compressions or two consecutive rarefactions is
called the wavelength,represented by λ, (Greek
letter lambda)
 The SI unit is meter(m).
 Themagnitude of disturbance in a medium
on either side of the mean value is called an
amplitude (A).
As shown in the figure below, amplitude is
the distance between mean position and
crest (maximum displacement).
 The time taken by the wave for one
complete oscillation of the density or
pressure of the medium is called the time
period, T.
 SI unit is second (s).
 The number of complete oscillations per
unit time is called the frequency (ν),
Greek letter, nu.
 SI unit is hertz(Hz), or 1/s
 Frequency and time period are related as
follows, frequency=1/timeperiod or ν=1/T
 The speed of sound is defined as the
distance which a point on a wave travels
per unit time.
 λ is the wavelength, which is the distance
travelled in one time period.
 Hence Speed= distance/time or v= λ/T
 The speed v, frequency ν , and
wavelength λ, of sound are related by the
equation,
v = λ /T or v=λν.
 Speed = wavelength x time period
 The speed of sound depends primarily on the
nature and the temperature of the
transmitting medium.
 The speed of sound decreases when we go
from solid to gaseous state.
 In any medium as we increase the
temperature the speed of sound increases.
 For example, the speed of sound in air is 331
ms–1 at 0 ºC and 344 ms–1 at 22 ºC.
 Like light, sound gets reflected at the surface of a
solid or liquid and follows the laws of reflection.
i) The angle of incidence is equal to the angle of
reflection.
ii) The incident ray, the reflected ray and normal at
the point of incidence all lie in the same plane.
 For hearing a distinct sound, the time
interval between the original sound and
the reflected one must be at least 0.1 s.
 The minimum distance of the obstacle
from the source of sound must be 17.2 m.
A reverberation is the persistence of a sound after a
sound is produced.
 It is created when a sound signal is reflected
multiple of times until it reaches a sound wave that
cannot be heard by human ears.
 Inan auditorium or big hall excessive
reverberation is highly undesirable.
 To reduce reverberation, the roof and walls of the
auditorium are generally covered with sound-
absorbent materials.
 Megaphones ,horns, musical instruments such
as trumpets and shehanais, are all designed
to send sound in a particular direction
without spreading it in all directions.
Stethoscope is a medical instrument used for
listening to sounds produced in the heart or lungs of
human body.
 In stethoscopes the sound of the patient’s
heartbeat reaches the doctor’s ears by multiple
reflection of sound.
 The curved ceilings of concert halls and conference
halls make the sound after reflection reach all
corners of the hall.
 Sometimes a curved soundboard may be placed
behind the stage so that the sound, after reflecting
from the sound board, spreads evenly across the
width of the hall.
 Sound properties such as pitch, loudness and
quality are determined by the corresponding
wave properties.
 The loudness or softness of a sound is determined
basically by its amplitude. The amplitude of the
sound wave depends upon the force with which
an object is made to vibrate.
 Loudness is a physiological response of the
ear to the intensity of sound.
 The amount of sound energy passing each
second through unit area is called the
intensity of sound.
 If the frequency of vibration is higher, the
sound is shrill and has a high pitch.
 If the sound is said to have a lower pitch then it
has a lower frequency of vibration.
 A bird produces high pitched sound whereas
roaring of a lion is a low pitched sound.
 Theproperty that enables us to distinguish
one sound from another having the same
pitch and loudness. It depends on the
waveform produced by the vibration of the
object.
 The audible range of hearing for average human
beings is in the frequency range of 20Hz – 20 kHz.
 Infrasound-sound with frequency lower than 20Hz.
 Ultrasound-sound with frequency higher than
20KHz.
 The waves having  The waves having
frequency less than 20 frequency more than
Hz are infrasonic waves. 20,000 Hz are
 A vibrating simple ultrasonic waves.
pendulum produces
 Bats and rats can
infrasonic sounds.
produce ultrasonic
 Elephants and whales sounds.
produces infrasonic
waves.
 Earthquakes produces
infrasonic waves
 Industrialapplications:
 To clean parts located in hard-to-reach places,
for example, spiral tube, odd shaped parts,
electronic components etc.
 To detect cracks and flaws in metal blocks.
 Medical applications:
 Echocardiography- Ultrasonic waves are
made to reflect from various parts of the
heart and form the image of the heart.
 Ultrasonography-Ultrasound scanner for
getting images of internal organs of the
human body.
 Ultrasound may be employed for the
treatment of kidney stones.
 Sonar stands for Sound Navigation And
Ranging. It is a device which uses ultrasonic
waves to measure distance, direction and speed
of underwater objects.
This technique is used to determine the depth
of the sea and to locate underwater hills, valleys,
submarine, icebergs, sunken ship etc.
 Ifthe time taken for the transmission
and reception of ultra sound is t and the
distance travelled is 2d by the ultra
sound, then 2d = v x t
or d = v x t
2
 Thehigh-pitched ultrasonic squeaks of the
bat are reflected from the obstacles or prey
and returned to bat’s ear.