Sound

Production of Sound

When you place your fingertips against the front of

your throat, you can feel the vibration of your vocal
cord when you make a noise.

If we bang a tuning folk on a cork, the prongs

vibrate and we hear a sound. If the vibrating
prongs quickly dipped into water, we see that
water splashes.

These examples shows that sound is caused by vibration. Any vibrating object can
be a source of sound waves. Sound waves are longitudinal in nature.

Propagation of sound wave

When a loudspeaker cone vibrates, it moves forward and backward very fast. This
squashes and stretches air in front. As a result a series of compressions (squashes)
and rarefactions (stretches) travel out through the air. These are sound waves.
When they reach your ears, they make your ear-drum vibrate and you hear a
sound.
Compression

Compression is the region where the particles are close together and has high
pressure.

Rarefraction

Rarefaction is the region where the particles are further apart and has low
pressure.

Audible frequencies

Human ear can only hear sounds with a frequency of between 20Hz to 20 000Hz
(20Hz to 20kHz). This frequency range is called range of audible frequencies.

Sound wave needs a medium to travel through

This material is called a medium. Without it, there is nothing to pass on any
oscillations. Sound cannot trough a vacuum (completely empty space). The
experiment below is to prove that sound waves need a medium to travel trough:

Put the electric bell into jar and

remove all the air inside the jar with the help of vacuum pump. Then connect the
bell into the battery and switch on, since the bell ring no sounds hear the outside
of the jar. This means sound required medium to travel through.
Echo Sound:

Sound waves can be reflected by large, flat and hard surfaces like walls and cliffs.
If the reflected sound is heard after an interval of time, it is called an Echo.

Uses of Echo:

Ultrasound is also used to quality control (detect flaws in metals). The echo
sounding principle can be used detect flaws in metals.

Ships use echo – sounders to measure the depth of water beneath them. An echo
– sounder sends pulses of ultra sound downwards towards the seabed, and then
measures the time taken for each echo (reflected sound) to return. The longer the
time, the deeper the sea.