& Sound and space > 6.2 Interference of sound ‘+ find out how sound waves can reinforce each other to make louder sounds ‘+ find out how sound waves can cancel each other out to make no sound. Getting started Key words Work in groups. 1. Each person in the group should draw a wave on a piece of paper. 2 Compare all the waves that have been drawn in the group, 2 Sort the waves in order from smallest amplitude to largest amplitude. b Sort the waves again, this time from smallest frequency to largest frequency.6.2 Interference of sound Interference ‘Water waves are a useful analogy for sound waves. Particles in water ‘waves do not move in the same Way as particles in a sound wave, but the analogy helps explain how waves behave. If you dip your finger in and out of water, you can make waves as shown in the picture. I you make (wo sets of water waves, you ean watch what happens ‘when the waves meet each other. If you move your fingers al the same frequency and with the same amplitude, you can make a pattern like the ‘one in the next picture, ‘The effect that is produced when the waves meet each other is called interference. a>& Sound and space > Sound waves also produce interference when they meet each other. Interference ean only happen when the waves are of the same type. Sound waves can interfere with each other. Sound waves cannot interfere with water waves. Interference is easiest to detect when the waves have the same frequency and the same amplitude. Interference can produce two effects: the waves can reinforce or the waves can cancel each other. Waves that reinforce ‘The word reinforce means to make stronger. If you look carefully at the picture of the water waves interfering, you ‘can see a pattern. Part of the pattern is made by waves reinforcing each other. These parts appear with waves of larger amplitude than either of the individual waves. In this pattern, there are only small areas with waves that have reinforced. Waves will reinforce when they meet with the peaks together and with the troughs together. This is shown in the diagram. direction of wavemovernent rection of wave movernent Two waves can interfere to reinforce when the wave peaks arrive tagothor. If you look carefully at the diagram, you will see that: + theamplitudes of the two waves that interfere are added together + the frequency of the two waves that interfere does not change. When sound waves interfere to reinforee, the amplitude of the sound wave increases, ‘You will recall from the previous topic that the loudness of a sound wave depends on its amplitude. ‘That means, that when two sound waves reinforce, the sound becomes louder. ‘Sound waves can meet and reinforce where there are two sources of the same sound, et ae >6.2 Interference of sound ‘The picture shows the stage for a musie concert. There are two, loudspeakers — one on either side of the staze. At certain places in the audience, people may hear sounds of a particular pitch fouder than usual. This can be caused by the sound ‘waves from the two loudspeakers meeting and reinforcing. loudspeakers This diagram shows the pattern of sound waves that could be produced from these loudspeakers, ‘The curved lines in the diagram represent peaks in the sound waves. Where two of these lines cross, the waves will reinforee. A person at that position will hear a louder sound, Sound waves will also reinforce where two troughs meet, ‘but this is difficult to show in the diagram. 29)6 Sound and epaco > Waves that cancel ‘Waves will eancel when they meet with the peaks and troughs together. The ‘word cancel in the context of waves means adding together to make rero. “Think of a peak as the wave’s maximum positive amplitude, and a trough as the wave's maximum negarire amplitude. When you add i postive ‘number to a negative number of equal size, you get zero; for example, 2+ (-2)=0. “This is shown in the diagram, Stecton cf ave movement SPD, peaked MPISIY ough) “wo waves can interfae to cancel when the nave peaks of one mest troughs of another of equal amplinds If you look carefully at the diagram, you will se that the amplitudes of the two waves that interfere are added tozether to become zero. ‘When sound waves interfere to cancel, the amplitude of the sound wave becomes zero, the result is no sound, For two sound waves to cancel completely, their frequencies must be the same and their amplitudes ‘must be the same. ‘Noise-cancelling headphones work by making sound waves cancel. ‘The headphones pick up the sound from the surroundings, then analyse the sound wave and ereate another sound wave with the sume amplitude ‘and frequency, but out of phase with the original wave This new sound ‘waive is used {0 cancel the sound wave from the surroundings Thi the diagram. seal icophone ‘hehendhones crates sunt sound woes cance epson vr how nue) hata SRotertce Soren te sound waretom thesurrondinge a 20>6.2 Interforence of sound tis not likely that the sound waves from loudspeakers A and Bat the eoncert will ever completely eaneel so people hear nothing. This, is because the sound waves from loudspeakers A and B at the concert will be reflected off objects, including off people in the audience. These reflected sound waves would add many more waves to the pattern in the diagram, making it very unlikely that only two identical waves will be present to eaneel. Questions 4a Which of these will always result in a louder sound being heard? ‘Write one letter. A twosound waves cancel C_—_two sound waves refleet B two sound waves reinforee D_—_ two sound waves refraet b Which of these will always result in no sound being heard? Write one letter. A. twosound waves cancel C_—_two sound waves reflect B two sound waves reinforce two sound waves refract, 2 a Deseribe how two sound waves must meet in order to reinforce. bb Deseribe how two sound waves must meet in order to cancel. 3. The table gives information for two waves that will meet to reinforce, Copy the table and complete the missing information about the one wave that is formed. frequency in Hz | amplitude in mm | frequency in Hz | amplitude in mm 450 05 4 — Two sound waves have equal frequencies of 600 Hz. The amplitude of one of the waves is 0.25 mm. a State the amplitude of the other wave required for the two ‘waves to cancel. b State the amplitude after the waves cancel completely. 22>6 Sound and space > Reinforcing and cancelling waves In this activity, you will use water waves as an analogy for sound waves, to observe: reinforcing and cancelling. You will need: * shallow tray to hold water, piece of white sheet material ‘to put in the base of the tray, piece of wood with two pl identical nails that are part-way into the wood as shown in the diagram — the distance between the nails should bbe less than half the width of the tay. Method 1 Put water in the tray to a depth of about 2-3 cm, 2 Put the white sheet at the bottom of the tray. This is to make the waves easier to see. 3 Hold the piece of wood above the tray so the heads of the nails are just touching the water surface, 4 Move the wood up and down so the heads of the nails make waves in the water. 5 Observe the pattern where the waves meet. Questions 1 Suggest why both nails are attached to the same piece of wood and not dipped into the water separately. Use the words frequency and amplitude in your answer. 2 Copy and complete the sentences. a Inthe areas where there is larger amplitude, the two waves are said to b Inthe areas where there is zero amplitude, the two waves are said to 3 This demonstration can be done with sound, but it is more difficult. a Suggest two sources of sound that could be used to produce two sound waves of equal frequency and equal amplitude b Even in a room with no other sounds, it is very difficult to make two sound waves cancel so you do not hear anything. Suggest why. 22>6.2 Interference of sound Listening to sound waves reinforcing In this investigation, you will listen to the effect when sound waves reinforce In Stage 7, you learnt that sound waves can reflect. Its possible to make a sound wave reflect so that the reflected wave reinforces the wave from the sound source. Method 1 Set up the equipment as shown in the diagram. sing tt Strike the tuning fork so it makes a sound. Hold the tuning fork over the open end of the pipe. Move the pipe up or down to a new position in the water so pipe — the length of pipe above the water changes. L 5 Listen for an increase in loudness of the sound from the Ec ‘tuning fork 6 Strike the tuning fork again, if needed, and adjust the length of the pipe above water so the sound is loudest. 7 Measure the length of the pipe above water. awn 8 Repeat steps 1-7 with a tuning fork of different pitch. Questions 1. Find out the frequencies of the tuning forks that you used. 2 Record your results in a table. 3. Describe the trend in the results that links the frequency to the length. 4 Use this trend to explain how the range of notes produced by wind instruments, depends on the length of the win eee zy