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Allan D. Pierce

Acoustics
An Introduction to Its Physical
Principles and Applications
Third Edition
Acoustics
Allan D. Pierce

Acoustics
An Introduction to Its Physical Principles
and Applications

Third Edition

123
Allan D. Pierce
East Sandwich
MA, USA

Previously published by McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1980, and the Acoustical Society of America,
1989, © McGraw-Hill, Inc., 1981.

ISBN 978-3-030-11213-4 ISBN 978-3-030-11214-1 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11214-1

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publishers, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publishers, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this
book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publishers nor the authors
or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publishers remain neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
The ASA Press

The ASA Press imprint represents a collaboration between the Acoustical Society
of America and Springer dedicated to encouraging the publication of important new
books in acoustics. Published titles are intended to reflect the full range of research
in acoustics. ASA Press books can include all types of books published by Springer
and may appear in any appropriate Springer book series.

Editorial Board

Mark F. Hamilton (Chair), University of Texas at Austin

James Cottingham, Coe College
Diana Deutsch, University of California, San Diego
Timothy F. Duda, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Robin Glosemeyer Petrone, Threshold Acoustics
William M. Hartmann (Ex Officio), Michigan State University
Darlene R. Ketten, Boston University
James F. Lynch (Ex Officio), Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Philip L. Marston, Washington State University
Arthur N. Popper (Ex Officio), University of Maryland
G. Christopher Stecker, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Stephen C. Thompson, The Pennsylvania State University
Ning Xiang, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
The Acoustical Society of America

On 27 December 1928 a group of scientists and engineers met at Bell Telephone

Laboratories in New York City to discuss organizing a society dedicated to the field
of acoustics. Plans developed rapidly, and the Acoustical Society of America (ASA)
held its first meeting on 10–11 May 1929 with a charter membership of about 450.
Today, ASA has a worldwide membership of 7000.
The scope of this new society incorporated a broad range of technical areas
that continues to be reflected in ASA’s present-day endeavors. Today, ASA serves
the interests of its members and the acoustics community in all branches of
acoustics, both theoretical and applied. To achieve this goal, ASA has established
technical committees charged with keeping abreast of the developments and needs
of membership in specialized fields, as well as identifying new ones as they develop.
The Technical Committees include acoustical oceanography, animal bioacous-
tics, architectural acoustics, biomedical acoustics, engineering acoustics, musical
acoustics, noise, physical acoustics, psychological and physiological acoustics,
signal processing in acoustics, speech communication, structural acoustics and
vibration, and underwater acoustics. This diversity is one of the Society’s unique
and strongest assets since it so strongly fosters and encourages cross-disciplinary
learning, collaboration, and interactions.
ASA publications and meetings incorporate the diversity of these Technical
Committees. In particular, publications play a major role in the Society. The Journal
of the Acoustical Society of America (JASA) includes contributed papers and
patent reviews. JASA Express Letters (JASA-EL) and Proceedings of Meetings on
Acoustics (POMA) are online, open-access publications, offering rapid publication.
Acoustics Today, published quarterly, is a popular open-access magazine. Other key
features of ASA’s publishing program include books, reprints of classic acoustics
texts, and videos. ASA’s biannual meetings offer opportunities for attendees to share
information, with strong support throughout the career continuum, from students
to retirees. Meetings incorporate many opportunities for professional and social
interactions, and attendees find the personal contacts a rewarding experience. These
experiences result in building a robust network of fellow scientists and engineers,
many of whom become lifelong friends and colleagues.
From the Society’s inception, members recognized the importance of developing
acoustical standards with a focus on terminology, measurement procedures, and
criteria for determining the effects of noise and vibration. The ASA Standards
Program serves as the Secretariat for four American National Standards Institute
Committees and provides administrative support for several international standards
committees.
Throughout its history to present day, ASA’s strength resides in attracting the
interest and commitment of scholars devoted to promoting the knowledge and
practical applications of acoustics. The unselfish activity of these individuals in the
development of the Society is largely responsible for ASA’s growth and present
stature.
To my wife,
Penelope
Foreword

The first edition of Acoustics: An Introduction to Its Physical Principles and

Applications by Allan D. Pierce was published by McGraw-Hill in 1981. I was
in my third year of graduate school at the time, and my research was becoming
increasingly focused in the area of physical acoustics. Even as a neophyte, I
recognized that Pierce’s book was something special. While decades later my
teaching and research continue to be influenced by his scholarly presentation of
the subject matter—and continuously more so with time as I am able to more
fully appreciate the nuances of his physical insights and mathematical rigor—what
attracted my attention as a graduate student were the ubiquitous and extended
footnotes in his book calling attention to seminal work. Pierce explains in the
preface to his first edition that “Few readers will have the time to browse through
the early archival literature on the subject” and then adds that “often (especially so
with Rayleigh) the person who conceived an idea and who said it first said it best.”
So very true, on both counts.
Indeed, R. Bruce Lindsay, one of the premier historians in acoustics, went one
step further when he argued in his excellent review of the first edition [J. Acoust.
Soc. Am. 70, 1548 (1981)] that “Students have a right and probably an obligation
to know the historical origins of the basic acoustical principles discussed in a
book of this kind, and the author has answered this with a profusion of historical
references, mainly in the form of footnotes closely connected with the subjects
in question, rather than using the more customary device of a bibliography at the
end of each chapter.” Pierce is the consummate scholar, and his commitment to
providing historical context comes as no surprise to anyone who has attended his
presentations at meetings of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA). Virtually
without exception they contain photographs of pioneers in the field, often with
cartoons and speech balloons memorably highlighting their contributions to science.
Subsequently as a young assistant professor what attracted my attention to the
second edition of Pierce’s book, published by the ASA in 1989, was the addition
of an appendix providing hints and answers to the problems. Pierce notes in the
preface to the first edition that “None of the problems are of the ‘plug-in’ variety,”
which is something of an understatement. Prior to the publication of the second

ix
x Foreword

edition, I approached Pierce at an ASA meeting and started to ask if he would

consider making his homework solutions available. He interrupted me before I could
complete my question, remarking that he was becoming disappointed by faculty
he felt should be capable of solving the problems themselves, after which he said
“What was it you wanted to ask me?” I quickly changed the subject!
Pierce thus has very high standards, and the second edition of his book soon
became the best seller among numerous books on acoustics that were reprinted
by the ASA, many of which are considered classics. The present third edition
has been reformatted, but apart from minor corrections, the content is unaltered.
Since in recent years Pierce’s book may well be the best seller in physical
acoustics worldwide, it seems fitting that his third edition, 38 years after his first
edition, would be published on the centennial of Lord Rayleigh’s passing in 1919.
Rayleigh’s book, The Theory of Sound, is the gold standard for physical acoustics.
Producing a treatise on physical acoustics such as Pierce’s scholarly opus does
not, like sound itself, occur in a vacuum. He has distinguished himself as an
extraordinary researcher in acoustics, despite the fact that he was not originally
trained in acoustics. His doctoral research at MIT was in the field of quantum
mechanics. Not until after he graduated from MIT, when he went to work for the
prestigious RAND Corporation, was he introduced to acoustics when tasked with
modeling atmospheric propagation of infrasound produced by nuclear explosions.
That happenstance but fortuitous circumstance launched an intense, lifelong passion
for acoustics that continues to this day.
Pierce’s contributions to the theory of acoustics span at least half of the currently
14 subdisciplines of acoustics for which the ASA has established individual
technical committees. In general, he is known for his fundamental research on
the mechanics of waves, acoustics, and structural vibrations. Specific areas of
research have included atmospheric acoustics, sonic booms, interaction of sound
with structures, waves on shells immersed in fluid, diffraction and scattering of
sound, mechanics of marine sediments, and noise control. Particularly influential
contributions to the theory of sound include his adiabatic approximation for
propagation in modes of range-dependent waveguides, models for diffraction over
barriers with finite impedance, and variational methods in acoustics, to name just
a few. His breadth of research experience contributes substantially to the physical
intuition communicated to readers of his book. Yet despite citing more than 700
different authors in his book, Pierce did not refer to a single publication with his
own name on it.
Within academia, Pierce may be unique in having as a large part of his legacy
the considerable expansion of not just one but two prominent acoustics programs at
major universities. One is in the George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engi-
neering at Georgia Tech, which Pierce joined in 1973 and where he was Regents’
Professor from 1976 until 1988, and the other is in the Department of Mechanical
Engineering at Boston University, where he was department chair from 1993 to
1999. He retired from Boston University in 2012 as emeritus professor. Other
academic appointments held by Pierce include assistant and associate professor
of Mechanical Engineering at MIT between 1966 and 1973, and Leonhard Chair
Foreword xi

in Engineering at Penn State from 1988 to 1993 with joint appointments in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Graduate Program in Acoustics.
In addition to building academic programs in acoustics, Pierce has compiled an
extraordinary record of service to the acoustics community, particularly in the realm
of publishing. In 1992 he cofounded the Journal of Computational Acoustics, and
from 1987 until 2000 he was coeditor of the prestigious Academic Press series
of volumes titled “Physical Acoustics.” Most prominently, from 1999 to 2015 he
served as editor-in-chief for the ASA. As well as managing the Journal of the
Acoustical Society of America (JASA), JASA Express Letters, and Acoustics Today,
he also launched Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics (POMA), which has grown
to become a popular means of rapid publication and open access. He has chaired and
served on professional society committees, editorial boards, and executive boards
too numerous to list here.
Pierce has thus made outstanding contributions to acoustics in each of the three
areas in which faculty are normally evaluated at leading research universities:
teaching, research, and service. In recognition of such a rare combination of
achievements, the ASA has bestowed upon him every one of its major awards:
the Silver Medal in Physical Acoustics in 1991 “for many significant contributions
to acoustics: Its basic physical principles and applications”; the Rossing Prize in
Acoustics Education in 2004; the Gold Medal in 2005 “for contributions to physical,
environmental, and structural acoustics, acoustics education, and leadership as
Editor-in-Chief of the Society”; and the Distinguished Service Citation in 2015 “for
his excellent service to the Acoustical Society of America, and especially for his
15 years of service as Editor-in-Chief.” Honors apart from the ASA include, among
others, the ASME Per Brüel Gold Medal for Noise Control, and Acoustics, and the
Gold Medal of the Acoustical Foundation of India.
Physical acoustics underlies all areas of applied acoustics, and the present text
is an excellent exposition of the fundamental science and mathematical techniques
used to describe sound in fluids. Pierce alerts potential readers in the preface to his
first edition that “a deep understanding of acoustical principles is not acquired by
superficial efforts.” While introductory, his text is indeed reasonably advanced, and
it will serve admirably even the leading researchers in acoustics throughout their
careers.

W.A. (Bill) Cunningham Professor in Engineering Mark F. Hamilton

The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX, USA
Preface to the First and Second Editions

This book introduces the physical principles of acoustics. The predominant objec-
tive is to develop those concepts and points of view that have proven most useful
in traditional realms of application such as noise control, underwater acoustics,
architectural acoustics, audio engineering, nondestructive testing, remote sensing,
and medical ultrasonics. The book is suitable as a text or as supplementary reading
for senior and first-year graduate students in engineering, physics, and mathematics.
Preliminary versions of the book in the form of class notes have been used in a
three-term (one academic year) introductory course in acoustics taken by graduate
students in electrical engineering, aerospace engineering, mechanical engineering,
engineering mechanics, and physics at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Portions
of the presentation evolved from a graduate course on wave propagation previously
taught at MIT to students from the departments of mechanical engineering, ocean
engineering, and earth and planetary sciences. The mathematical developments
and the assumptions concerning the prior academic experiences of the readers are
such that no one with any of the backgrounds just mentioned should be precluded
from taking a course in which this book is used as a text or as principal outside
reading. The text, however, is intended to be at a level of mathematical sophistication
and intellectual challenge comparable to distinguished graduate texts in the basic
engineering sciences (such as fluid dynamics, solid mechanics, thermodynamics,
and electromagnetic theory); a deep understanding of acoustical principles is not
acquired by superficial efforts.
Graduate courses rarely follow a text closely; the instructor is invariably deeply
involved in research or in the applications of the subject and shapes the course
content to conform with what appears timely, with the research programs at the
institution, and with the common interests of the students. This book is intended
to facilitate such flexibility. The common ground of introductory acoustics courses
is covered thoroughly, so the student can fill in whatever gaps result because of the
pace of the lectures. Since the text derives almost all of the equations frequently used
in acoustics, the instructor can relegate to outside reading whatever derivations seem
too time consuming for the lectures and can thereby concentrate on the physical

xiii
xiv Preface to the First and Second Editions

implications and on the applications of the results without sacrificing the course’s
level of rigor.
Portions of the text’s material have also been used in senior elective courses for
engineering and physics students. This book is suitable for such a course, provided
the instructor exercises good judgment in the selection of topics and the course
does not cater to the handbook-oriented student. A possible path through the text
for a one-term undergraduate course begins with Chap. 1, but omits Sect. 1.10; the
course then continues with Chap. 2 through Sect. 2.6, with an extraction of results
from Sects. 2.7 to 2.8. Section 3.1 is terminated with the derivation of Eq. (3.2.1).
Sections 3.2 and 3.3 are then covered, with a subsequent jump to Sects. 4.1 through
4.4. Then, a possibility is the discussion of reciprocity and transducers in Sects. 4.9
and 4.10; Sect. 5.1 on sources near walls should always be included. If the students
are interested in noise control or architectural acoustics, the first half of Chap. 6,
through Sect. 6.4, possibly without Sect. 6.2, should be covered. Sections 7.2,
7.3, 7.4, 7.6, 7.7, and 7.8 should be palatable with careful circumnavigation of
the more mathematical paragraphs. Students oriented toward underwater sound,
remote sensing, or medical ultrasonics may be guided through Sects. 8.1 through
8.5, followed by Sects. 9.1 through 9.3. Other possibilities should be evident to an
astute instructor.
Many of the exercises at the ends of the individual chapters come from
examinations the author has given in either graduate or undergraduate courses and
can be briefly carried through, once the pertinent concepts are understood. Others
are more challenging and, in some cases, will require hints from the instructor if
they are to be solved in a reasonable period of time by the average student. None of
the problems are of the “plug-in” variety, but there should be a sufficient quantity
at various levels of difficulty that the instructor can tailor homework assignments to
the abilities of the students.
The footnotes scattered throughout the book embody the author’s opinion that a
textbook at this level should accurately cite the original sources of the basic concepts
and principles. Many citations lead us back to Rayleigh and earlier, but this does not
mean that the principles are any less applicable today. Few readers will have the time
to browse through the early archival literature on the subject. Indeed, one reason why
textbooks are written is to obviate doing such a thing—although often (especially
so with Rayleigh) the person who conceived an idea and who said it first said it
best. Eloquent defenses of the value to the practicing professional of the history of
the profession’s current stock of knowledge may be found within the works cited in
Sect. 1.1 by Hunt and by Lindsay. In any event, the citations in the footnotes should
be harmless to the recalcitrant pragmatic reader. The book is intended to be self-
contained; whatever omissions in background material the reader encounters can be
filled by consulting contemporary textbooks on mathematics and basic physics.
The more recent citations include most of the author’s favorite references
on acoustics; these are recommended reading for anyone who desires further
elaboration on the subject matter. The author regrets that the pedagogical objectives
of the book and the constraint that the book be of manageable length precluded the
inclusion of some of the more important topics in modern acoustics (e.g. jet noise,
Preface to the First and Second Editions xv

acoustic emissions, cavitation, streaming, radiation pressure and levitation, com-

bustion noise, parametric arrays, propagation through turbulence, sound-structural
interaction, surface waves, and acoustical imaging). A consequence is that many
works that the author esteems highly are not mentioned here. An introductory text
with the objective of inculcating a deep understanding of the basic principles cannot,
however, be encyclopedic, and some hard decisions had to be made. The student
should be able to proceed rapidly, once these basic principles are understood, toward
any of the current frontiers of acoustics.
Along with the writings of Rayleigh and of other past contributors to the field, the
style and content of this book have been influenced by the author’s early teachers,
Richard H. Duncan and Laszlo Tisza, and by his past associations with Albert
Latter, Elisabeth Iliff, Charles A. Moo, S. H. Crandall, J. P. Den Hartog, Huw
G. Davies, Y. K. Lin, T.-Y. Toong, Patrick Leehey, Richard Lyon, P. P. Lele, Joe
W. Posey, Wayne A. Kinney, Warren Strahle, W. James Hadden, Jr., E.-A. Müller,
W. Möhring, and F. Obermeier. The writing of the book has also been affected by
conversations or correspondence with John Snowdon, Herbert S. Ribner, Dominic
Maglieri, Lucio Maestrello, Richard K. Cook, R. Bruce Lindsay, Geoffrey Main,
David T. Blackstock, K. Uno Ingard, David G. Crighton, Hugh G. Flynn, T. F. W.
Embleton, Robert Waag, Robert E. Apfel, Robert W. Young, Jiri Tichy, Donald
Lansing, M. C. Junger, H. M. Überall, C.-H. Chew, Edmund H. Brown, Prateen
Desai, T. J. Lardner, Preston W. Smith, Jr., Michael Howe, Phillip A. Thompson,
Joseph E. Piercy, Walter Soroka, Sigalia Dostrovsky, Wesley Cobb, Lawrence A.
Crum, Henry E. Bass, Bill D. Cook, and Steven D. Pettyjohn. Thanks must also
be expressed to the many students who pointed out weaknesses in the earlier class
notes and who suggested improvements.
Although the writing of this book has extended over many years, the author’s
ideas concerning its substance crystallized during a year’s sojourn (1976–1977)
with the Max-Planck-Institut für Strömungsforschung in Göttingen. The Institute’s
research objectives and atmosphere were conducive to a sustained contemplation
of the principles of acoustics, of their interconnections, and of their mechanical,
thermodynamic, and mathematical foundations. The author is grateful to Professor
E.-A. Müller and his colleagues for their hospitality and rapport and to the
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation for the generous award that made the stay
in Göttingen possible.
The author thanks the staff of the School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia
Tech for their forbearance throughout this long, seemingly interminable, project.
The empathy and encouragement of S. Peter Kezios, the school’s director, is very
much appreciated.
The author is also grateful to the library personnel who helped him in this
endeavor; he especially thanks Robert Perrault for advice and for facilitating the
procurement of rare bibliographic materials.
It was the author’s extreme good fortune to have the collaboration of Rosie
Atkins, an outstanding technical typist and manuscript stylist. Throughout several
generations of manuscripts, Mrs. Atkins patiently and accurately interpreted and
xvi Preface to the First and Second Editions

translated heavily scored, barely legible handscripts, laden with equations and
symbols, into attractive and readable typescripts.
The author’s largest debt of thanks is owed to his wife Penny and to his children,
Jennifer and Bradford. Their loyalty, encouragement, cheerfulness, and willingness
to sacrifice have contributed immeasurably to the successful completion of this
book.

Atlanta, GA, USA Allan D. Pierce

September 1980
Preface to the Third Edition

The first edition of this book was published in late 1980 by McGraw-Hill Book
Company with a copyright date of 1981. The original motivations for writing the
book are described in the accompanying preface to the first edition, and I believe
that those reasons continue to apply today. The book was very well received, and
complimentary reviews were published by Bruce Lindsay, David Crighton, Preston
Smith, Michael Howe, and several other eminent acousticians. It was also used as a
graduate-level text in a number of universities. Bruce Lindsay was at that time the
editor-in-chief of the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) and a highly respected
author and editor of several substantial books related to acoustics. He made the
unusual decision to personally review the book for the Journal of the Acoustical
Society of America (JASA), and his review contained the forecast:
Without question this volume will take its place among the more prominent texts for
advanced courses in fundamental acoustical theory and applications. The student who
masters it should have no difficulty facing with assurance the current problems in acoustical
technology.

However, in 1988, I received a phone call from a professor at the University of

Illinois, who had been using the book for a number of years as a text for a course,
but had found that the bookstore could no longer obtain copies. McGraw-Hill had
chosen not to pursue a second printing.
Shortly thereafter, Robert Beyer and William Hartmann approached me to ask
if the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) could reprint the book. As it turned
out, the agreement with McGraw-Hill gave me the right to take back the copyright
if the book should fall out of print. The ASA had initiated a book reprinting
program somewhat earlier (1983) because it was concerned by the choice of US
publishers to let leading acoustics books go out of print. The ASA had set up a Books
(later, Books+) Committee to advise the ASA Executive Council as to which books
should be reprinted. The ASA published a reprint of my book, using a photo-offset
technique, in 1989. The reprinting process was handled by the American Institute of
Physics, and most of the original typographical errors in the McGraw-Hill edition

xvii
xviii Preface to the Third Edition

were corrected. The ASA edition also included a 30-page appendix giving answers
and solution hints for the problems in the book.
Over the subsequent years, the ASA published around 40 books, mostly reprints
of classic titles that had gone out of print, but also selected new titles. My textbook
was reprinted several times and was persistently the ASA’s all-time best seller. The
book emerged as arguably the most highly cited graduate-level text on acoustics. As
of the date of this writing, Google Scholar lists 4548 articles and books that cite the
book.
About a decade or so ago, technology evolved to the point where publishers
rarely allowed their better-selling books to go out of print. The ASA books
publishing program became cumbersome for the Society to administer, and few
new titles were published. To remedy this, the Society sought a new mechanism
for encouraging the publication of scholarly books in acoustics. After extensive
research and subsequent discussions within its Executive Council, the ASA even-
tually decided to partner with Springer so that suitable books might be published
under a newly established imprint, the ASA Press.
When the copies of the last ASA printing of my book were exhausted, publication
through the ASA Press collaboration seemed like the natural route. Springer was at
first not regarded as an option, because it did not ordinarily do reprints, especially
of the photo-offset type. As it turned out, Springer had developed a new technology
that enabled them to utilize a pdf scan of a previous edition, employing optical
character recognition, some special additional software, and knowledgeable human
oversight to produce complete and reasonably accurate LaTeX source code for the
entire book. This achievement enabled Springer to publish the book afresh as if
it were a freshly typed book. This appealed greatly to me and the result is what
you see here. Working from the somewhat raw LaTeX source code enabled me to
make extensive changes in format and in the configuring of equations. The result, I
believe, is a book that is considerably more readable than was the original McGraw-
Hill edition, and certainly more readable than the photo-offset edition published by
the ASA. Publication by Springer was additionally attractive because it had emerged
as the world’s premier publisher of books on acoustics and because of its unique
partnership with the ASA.

East Sandwich, MA, USA Allan D. Pierce

December 2018
Contents

1 The Wave Theory of Sound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 A Little History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 The Conservation of Mass . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
1.3 Euler’s Equation for a Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
1.4 Pressure–Density Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.4.1 Laplace’s Hypothesis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
1.4.2 Interpretation in Terms of Entropy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
1.4.3 Incorporation of Heat Conduction into Fluid
Dynamics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
1.5 Equations of Linear Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
1.6 The Wave Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
1.6.1 The Velocity Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
1.7 Plane Traveling Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
1.7.1 Processes Occurring During Passage of a Sound
Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
1.8 Waves of Constant Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
1.8.1 Time Average of a Product . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1.8.2 Spatially Dependent Complex Amplitudes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
1.8.3 Plane Waves of Constant Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
1.9 Speed of Sound and Ambient Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.9.1 Speed of Sound in Gases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
1.9.2 Acoustic Properties of Liquids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
1.10 Adiabatic Versus Isothermal Speeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
1.11 Energy, Intensity, and Source Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.11.1 Acoustic-Energy Corollary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
1.11.2 Energy Conservation in Fluids . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
1.11.3 Acoustic Power of Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
1.12 Spherical Waves. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1.12.1 Spherical Spreading of Acoustic Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
1.12.2 Spherically Symmetric Solution of the Wave
Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46

xix
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1.12.3 Fluid Velocity in a Spherically Symmetric Wave . . . . . . 47

1.12.4 Intensity and Energy Density. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.12.5 Field at Large Distances from Source of Finite
Extent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
1.13 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
2 Quantitative Measures of Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.1 Frequency Content of Sounds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.1.1 Frequency Bands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
2.1.2 Frequency Partitioning of Mean Squared Pressure . . . . . 62
2.1.3 Frequency Partitioning of Intensity, Acoustic
Power, and Energy Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
2.2 Proportional Frequency Bands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
2.2.1 Standard Frequencies and Bands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.2.2 Equally Tempered Musical Scales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
2.3 Levels and the Decibel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3.1 Sound-Pressure Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 68
2.3.2 Levels and Sound-Pressure Ratios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.3.3 Logarithms and Antilogarithms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
2.3.4 History of the Decibel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
2.3.5 Intensity and Power Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.4 Frequency Weighting and Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.4.1 Frequency Weighting Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.4.2 Linear Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
2.5 Combining of Levels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
2.6 Mutually Incoherent Sound Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
2.7 Fourier Series and Long-Duration Sounds. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
2.7.1 Spectral Density. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.7.2 Levels and Spectral Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
2.7.3 White and Pink Noise. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.8 Transient Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2.8.1 Dirac Delta Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
2.8.2 Sound-Exposure Spectral Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
2.9 Transfer Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
2.10 Stationary Ergodic Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
2.10.1 Wiener–Khintchine Theorem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
2.11 Bias and Variance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
2.12 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
3 Reflection, Transmission, and Excitation of Plane Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.1 Boundary Conditions at Impenetrable Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
3.1.1 Stationary Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.1.2 Vibrating Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
3.1.3 Continuity of Normal Component of Displacement . . . 119
3.2 Plane-Wave Reflection at a Flat Rigid Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Contents xxi

3.3 Specific Acoustic Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122

3.3.1 Plane Traveling Waves and Specific Acoustic
Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.3.2 Plane-Wave Reflection at a Surface with Finite
Specific Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.3.3 Locally Reacting Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
3.3.4 Theory of the Impedance Tube . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
3.4 Radiation of Sound by a Vibrating Piston Within a Tube . . . . . . . . . 130
3.4.1 Causality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
3.4.2 Tube with Rigid End: Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
3.4.3 Constant-Frequency Oscillations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
3.4.4 Tube with Impedance Boundary Condition at End . . . . . 137
3.4.5 The Q of a Resonance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
3.5 Sound Radiation by Traveling Flexural Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
3.5.1 Sound Generated by Supersonic Flexural Waves . . . . . . 141
3.5.2 Trace-Velocity Matching Principle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
3.5.3 Outgoing Versus Incoming Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
3.5.4 Acoustic Disturbances Created by Subsonic
Flexural Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
3.5.5 The Coincidence Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
3.5.6 Specific Radiation Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
3.6 Reflection and Transmission at an Interface Between
Two Fluids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
3.6.1 Water–Air Interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
3.6.2 Transient Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
3.7 Multilayer Transmission and Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
3.8 Transmission Through Thin Solid Slabs, Plates, and Blankets . . . 160
3.8.1 Transmission Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
3.8.2 Slab Specific Impedance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
3.8.3 Oblique-Incidence Mass Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
3.8.4 Transmission Through Euler–Bernoulli Plates . . . . . . . . . 164
3.8.5 Transmission Through Porous Blankets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
3.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
4 Radiation from Vibrating Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
4.1 Radially Oscillating Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
4.1.1 Low-Frequency Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
4.2 Transversely Oscillating Rigid Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
4.2.1 Force Exerted by Transversely Oscillating Sphere . . . . . 183
4.2.2 Small-ka Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
4.3 Monopoles and Green’s Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
4.3.1 Concept of a Point Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
4.3.2 Point Mass Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
4.3.3 Green’s Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
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4.4 Dipoles and Quadrupoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191

4.4.1 Dipoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 191
4.4.2 Point Force in a Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
4.4.3 Quadrupoles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
4.4.4 Multipole Expansions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
4.5 Uniqueness of Solutions of Acoustic Boundary-Value
Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
4.5.1 Poisson’s Theorem and Its Implications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
4.5.2 Closed Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
4.5.3 Uniqueness and Open Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
4.5.4 Sommerfeld Radiation Condition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
4.5.5 Uniqueness of Constant-Frequency Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
4.6 The Kirchhoff–Helmholtz Integral Theorem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
4.6.1 Multipole Expansions of the
Kirchhoff–Helmholtz Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
4.7 Sound Radiation from Small Vibrating Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
4.8 Radiation from a Circular Disk. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
4.8.1 Oblate-Spheroidal Coordinates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
4.8.2 Solutions of Laplace’s Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
4.8.3 Determination of the Outer Solution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
4.9 Reciprocity in Acoustics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
4.9.1 Reciprocity in Vibrating Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
4.9.2 Reciprocity and the Linear Acoustic Equations . . . . . . . . 226
4.9.3 Interchange of Source and Listener . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
4.9.4 Reciprocity and Green’s Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
4.10 Transducers and Reciprocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
4.11 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
5 Radiation from Sources Near and on Solid Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1 Sources Near Plane Rigid Boundaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1.1 Image Sources. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
5.1.2 Remarks Concerning Acoustic Power and
Spherical Spreading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
5.1.3 Cases When More Than One Wall Is Present . . . . . . . . . . 243
5.1.4 Dependence of Acoustic Far Field and Net
Acoustic Power Output on Distance from a Wall . . . . . . 244
5.2 Sources Mounted on Walls: The Rayleigh Integral;
Fresnel–Kirchhoff Theory of Diffraction by an Aperture . . . . . . . . . 246
5.2.1 Green’s-Function Derivation of Rayleigh Integral . . . . . 248
5.2.2 Fresnel–Kirchhoff Theory of Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249
5.3 Low-Frequency Radiation from Sources Mounted on Walls . . . . . 251
5.3.1 Pressure on Vibrating Circular Piston at Low
Frequencies. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 252
5.3.2 Force Exerted by the Slowly Oscillating Baffled
Piston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 254
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5.4 Radiation Impedance of Baffled-Piston Radiators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255

5.4.1 Electroacoustic Significance of Radiation
Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
5.4.2 Evaluation of Radiation Impedance for a Baffled
Circular Piston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
5.5 Far-Field Radiation from Localized Wall Vibrations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
5.6 Transient Solution for Baffled Circular Piston . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264
5.7 Field on and Near the Symmetry Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
5.7.1 Field on Symmetry Axis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
5.7.2 Field Near Symmetry Axis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 270
5.8 Transition to the Far Field . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
5.8.1 Properties of the Diffraction Integral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
5.8.2 Field Near Edge of Main Beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
5.8.3 Characteristic Single-Edge Diffraction Pattern . . . . . . . . . 278
5.8.4 Field Far Outside the Central Beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 282
5.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283
6 Room Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
6.1 The Sabine–Franklin–Jaeger Theory of Reverberant Rooms . . . . . 292
6.1.1 Energy-Conservation Equation for Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
6.1.2 Spatial Uniformity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
6.1.3 Reverberation Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
6.1.4 Sabine’s Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 296
6.1.5 Diffuse Sound Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298
6.1.6 Equivalent Area of Open Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
6.1.7 Absorbing Power of Objects and Persons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301
6.2 Some Modifications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
6.2.1 Mean Free Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
6.2.2 Limitations of Sabine’s Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 305
6.2.3 Norris–Eyring Reverberation Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 306
6.2.4 Rooms with Asymmetric Absorption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308
6.2.5 The Room Constant. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 310
6.3 Applications of the Sabine–Franklin–Jaeger Theory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
6.3.1 Design and Correction of Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
6.3.2 Measurement of Absorption Coefficients
and Reverberation Times . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 316
6.3.3 Measurement of Source Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 318
6.3.4 Simultaneous Conversations in a Reverberant
Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319
6.4 Coupled Rooms and Large Enclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
6.4.1 Transmission of Reverberant Sound Through
a Panel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
6.4.2 Transmission Out Through an Open Window . . . . . . . . . . 324
6.4.3 Theory of Large Enclosures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 324
6.4.4 Coupled Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326
6.4.5 Reverberant Decay in Coupled Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 327
xxiv Contents

6.5 The Modal Theory of Room Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 328

6.5.1 The Eigenvalue Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
6.5.2 Modes for a Rectangular Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 329
6.5.3 Orthogonality of Modal Eigenfunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 331
6.5.4 Modal Expansion of Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 332
6.5.5 Field of a Point Source in a Room with Walls
of Large Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333
6.5.6 Acoustic Energy in a Room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335
6.5.7 Modal Description of Power Injection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 336
6.6 High-Frequency Approximations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
6.6.1 The Modal Density . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 337
6.6.2 The Schroeder Cutoff Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339
6.6.3 Approximation of Modal Sums by Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . 340
6.6.4 Modal Averages of Squares of Eigenfunctions . . . . . . . . . 341
6.6.5 Evaluation of Modal Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342
6.7 Statistical Aspects of Room Acoustics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343
6.7.1 Frequency Correlation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 344
6.7.2 The Poisson Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347
6.7.3 Effect of Finite-Frequency Bandwidth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 349
6.8 Spatial Correlations in Diffuse Sound Fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
6.8.1 The Spatial Autocorrelation Function
for Acoustic Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352
6.8.2 Spatial Averaging . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
6.8.3 Frequency Averaging Versus Spatial Averaging. . . . . . . . 356
6.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357
7 Low-Frequency Models of Sound Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
7.1 Guided Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
7.1.1 Duct Cross-Sectional Eigenfunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 361
7.1.2 Duct with Rectangular Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
7.1.3 Duct with Circular Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 363
7.1.4 Cutoff Frequencies and Evanescent Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . 364
7.1.5 Point Source in a Duct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 365
7.2 Lumped-Parameter Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 367
7.2.1 Volume Velocity and Average Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
7.2.2 Acoustic Impedance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368
7.2.3 Acoustical Two-Ports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369
7.2.4 Continuous-Volume-Velocity Two-Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 371
7.2.5 Continuous-Pressure Two-Port . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
7.3 Guidelines for Selecting Lumped-Parameter Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
7.3.1 Continuity of Pressure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373
7.3.2 Continuity of Volume Velocity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375
7.3.3 Reflection and Transmission at a Junction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 379
Contents xxv

7.4 Helmholtz Resonators and Other Examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380

7.4.1 The Helmholtz Resonator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 380
7.4.2 Helmholtz Resonator as a Side Branch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 382
7.4.3 Composite Example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 384
7.5 Orifices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 385
7.5.1 Matched-Asymptotic-Expansion Solution
for Orifice Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386
7.5.2 Acoustic-Radiation Resistance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
7.5.3 Helmholtz Resonator with Baffled Opening . . . . . . . . . . . . 388
7.5.4 Acoustic Inertance of a Circular Orifice
in a Thin Plate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 389
7.5.5 Diffraction of Plane Wave by a Circular Orifice . . . . . . . 391
7.6 Estimation of Acoustic Inertances and End Corrections . . . . . . . . . . 392
7.6.1 Principle of Minimum Kinetic Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 392
7.6.2 Principle of Minimum Acoustic Inertance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
7.6.3 Effect of Relaxing of Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 394
7.6.4 Lower Bound for Acoustic Inertance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 395
7.6.5 Flanged Opening in a Duct . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 397
7.6.6 Circular Orifice in a Plate of Finite Thickness . . . . . . . . . 399
7.6.7 End Corrections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 399
7.6.8 Effective Neck Lengths of Helmholtz Resonators . . . . . 400
7.6.9 Boundary Conditions at Open Ends of Ducts . . . . . . . . . . 401
7.7 Mufflers and Acoustic Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403
7.7.1 The Transmission Matrix and Its Consequences . . . . . . . 403
7.7.2 Insertion Loss . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 404
7.7.3 Reactive and Dissipative Mufflers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 405
7.7.4 Helmholtz Resonators as Filters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406
7.7.5 Expansion-Chamber Muffler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 407
7.7.6 Commercial Muffler Designs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408
7.8 Horns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410
7.8.1 The Webster Horn Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413
7.8.2 Salmon’s Family of Horns. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 414
7.8.3 Concept of a Semi-Infinite Horn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 415
7.8.4 The Cutoff Frequency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416
7.8.5 Other Considerations in Horn Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 417
7.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 419
8 Ray Acoustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
8.1 Wavefronts, Rays, and Fermat’s Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
8.1.1 Ray Paths in Moving Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 427
8.1.2 Fermat’s Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 432
8.2 Rectilinear Sound Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 435
8.2.1 Parametric Description of Wavefronts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436
8.2.2 Variation of Principal Radii of Curvature
Along a Ray . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 437
8.2.3 Caustics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 438
xxvi Contents

8.3 Refraction in Inhomogeneous Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441

8.3.1 Refraction by Sound-Speed Gradients . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 441
8.3.2 Rays in a Medium with Constant-Sound-Speed
Gradient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443
8.3.3 Refraction by Wind Gradients. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 444
8.4 Rays in Stratified Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 446
8.4.1 The Ray Integrals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
8.4.2 Channeling of Ray Paths . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447
8.4.3 Rays in Fluids Without Ambient Flow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 449
8.4.4 Abnormal Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 451
8.5 Amplitude Variation Along Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
8.5.1 Wave Amplitudes in Homogeneous Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . 455
8.5.2 Energy Conservation Along Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 458
8.6 Wave Amplitudes in Moving Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 459
8.6.1 Linear Acoustics Equations for Moving Media . . . . . . . . 459
8.6.2 Conservation of Wave Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 461
8.6.3 The Blokhintzev Invariant . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465
8.7 Source Above an Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 468
8.7.1 Sound Field Above the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469
8.7.2 Field Below the Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471
8.8 Reflection from Curved Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
8.8.1 General Geometrical Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 473
8.8.2 Ray-Tube Area After Reflection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 477
8.8.3 Echoes from Curved Surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
8.8.4 Sound Beam Incident on a Sphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 478
8.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480
9 Scattering and Diffraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487
9.1 Basic Scattering Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
9.1.1 Scattering by a Rigid Object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 488
9.1.2 Scattering Cross Section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491
9.1.3 Higher-Frequency Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 493
9.1.4 Scattering by Inhomogeneities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 494
9.1.5 Spherical Inhomogeneity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497
9.1.6 Inertia Effect for Freely Suspended Particle . . . . . . . . . . . . 498
9.1.7 Resonant Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 499
9.2 Monostatic and Bistatic Scattering: Measurement
Configurations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 503
9.2.1 Monostatic Pulse-Echo Sounding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 504
9.2.2 Inhomogeneities and the Born Approximation . . . . . . . . . 506
9.2.3 Scattering Volumes Delimited by Electroacoustic
Transducers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 508
9.2.4 Acoustic Radar Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 511
9.2.5 Incoherent Scattering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 512
9.2.6 The Echosonde Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513
Contents xxvii

9.3 The Doppler Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

9.3.1 Doppler Shift for a Moving Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 518
9.3.2 Galilean Transformations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520
9.3.3 Echoes from Moving Targets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521
9.3.4 Doppler-Shift Velocimeters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 523
9.4 Acoustic Fields Near Caustics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527
9.4.1 The Airy Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 530
9.4.2 Generalization to Inhomogeneous Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 532
9.4.3 Field Near a Turning Point . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 534
9.4.4 Phase Shift at a Caustic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 535
9.5 Shadow Zones and Creeping Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 537
9.5.1 Point Source Above a Locally Reacting Surface
in a Stratified Medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538
9.5.2 Residues Series for the Shadow Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 541
9.5.3 Creeping Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 544
9.5.4 Ray Shedding by a Creeping Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 546
9.6 Source or Listener on the Edge of a Wedge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547
9.6.1 Source on Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 548
9.6.2 Listener on the Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 549
9.7 Contour-Integral Solution for Diffraction by a Wedge . . . . . . . . . . . . 550
9.7.1 Method of Images for Integer Wedge Index . . . . . . . . . . . . 552
9.7.2 Generalization to Noninteger Wedge Indices. . . . . . . . . . . 554
9.8 Geometrical-Acoustic and Diffracted-Wave Contributions
for the Wedge Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 556
9.8.1 The Geometrical Acoustics Portion of the Field . . . . . . . 556
9.8.2 The Diffracted Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 559
9.8.3 Asymptotic Expression for the Diffracted Wave . . . . . . . 560
9.8.4 Physical Interpretation of the Diffracted Wave . . . . . . . . . 562
9.9 Applications of Wedge-Diffraction Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
9.9.1 Insertion Loss of Single-Edged Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 566
9.9.2 Far Field of a Source on the Side of a Building . . . . . . . . 569
9.9.3 Backscattering from an Edge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 571
9.10 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 573
10 Effects of Viscosity and Other Dissipative Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
10.1 The Navier–Stokes–Fourier Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
10.1.1 The Stress Tensor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583
10.1.2 The Energy Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 585
10.1.3 Constitutive Relations for a Fluid . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 586
10.1.4 Values of Viscosity and Thermal Conductivity . . . . . . . . . 589
10.1.5 Transport Properties of Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 589
10.2 Linear Acoustic Equations and Energy Dissipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
10.2.1 Linear Acoustic Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 590
10.2.2 The Energy Conservation-Dissipation Corollary . . . . . . . 591
10.2.3 Attenuation of Plane Sound Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 593
xxviii Contents

10.3 Vorticity, Entropy, and Acoustic Modes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 595

10.3.1 Dispersion Relations for the Component Modes . . . . . . . 595
10.3.2 A Generalization Based on the Superposition
Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
10.3.3 Vorticity Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 598
10.3.4 Acoustic Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
10.3.5 The Entropy Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 599
10.4 Acoustic Boundary-Layer Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 600
10.4.1 Boundary Conditions at a Solid Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601
10.4.2 Vorticity- and Entropy-Mode Fields Near a Solid
Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 602
10.4.3 Boundary Condition on the Acoustic-Mode Field . . . . . 604
10.4.4 Energy Loss from the Acoustic Mode at a Boundary . . . . 605
10.4.5 Plane-Wave Reflection at a Solid Surface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 606
10.5 Attenuation and Dispersion in Ducts and Thin Tubes. . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
10.5.1 Propagation in Wide Ducts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609
10.5.2 Propagation in Narrow Tubes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 612
10.5.3 Slab with Circular Pores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 615
10.6 Viscosity Effects on Sound Radiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 616
10.6.1 Revision of the Kirchhoff-Helmholtz Theorem . . . . . . . . 617
10.6.2 Transversely Oscillating Rigid Bodies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 618
10.6.3 Stokes Flow Limit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 619
10.6.4 Thin-Boundary-Layer Approximation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 620
10.6.5 Gutin’s Principle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 622
10.6.6 Helicopter Rotor Noise . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 623
10.7 Relaxation Processes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
10.7.1 Partitioning of Internal Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627
10.7.2 The Bulk Viscosity. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 629
10.7.3 Instantaneous Entropy Function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 630
10.7.4 Fluid-Dynamic Equations with Relaxation lncluded . . . 631
10.7.5 The Relaxation Equations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 633
10.7.6 Numerical Values for the Constants of the Model. . . . . . 634
10.8 Absorption of Sound . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
10.8.1 Linear Acoustic Equations for Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 636
10.8.2 Energy Corollary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 637
10.8.3 Dispersion Relation for Plane Traveling Waves . . . . . . . . 638
10.8.4 Absorption by Relaxation Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 639
10.8.5 Phase-Velocity Changes Due to Relaxation
Processes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643
10.9 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
11 Nonlinear Effects in Sound Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
11.1 Nonlinear Steepening . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 649
11.1.1 Plane Waves in Homogeneous Media. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 650
11.1.2 Steepening of Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 653
Contents xxix

11.2 Generation of Harmonics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 654

11.2.1 Fourier-Series Representation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655
11.2.2 Conservation of Energy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 657
11.3 Weak-Shock Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658
11.3.1 The Rankine–Hugoniot Relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 658
11.3.2 Weak Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 661
11.3.3 The Equal-Area Rule . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 662
11.4 N Waves and Anomalous Energy Dissipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
11.4.1 Plane-Wave Propagation of an N Wave . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 664
11.4.2 Dissipation of Acoustic Energy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 666
11.5 Evolution of Sawtooth Waveforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
11.6 Nonlinear Dissipative Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 672
11.6.1 Approximate Equations for Transient Plane Waves . . . . 673
11.6.2 Modification to Include Nonlinear Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
11.6.3 The Burgers Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 674
11.6.4 Rise Times and Thicknesses of Weak Shocks . . . . . . . . . . 676
11.6.5 Relaxation Effects on Shock Structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 677
11.7 Transition to Old Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680
11.7.1 Reduction to the Linear Diffusion Equation . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
11.7.2 Solution of the Boundary-Value Problem. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 681
11.7.3 Relative Importances of Nonlinear and
Dissipative Effects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
11.7.4 Transition from Sawtooth to Old Age . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683
11.8 Nonlinear Effects in Converging and Diverging Waves . . . . . . . . . . . 685
11.8.1 Corrected Travel Time Along Ray Path . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 685
11.8.2 Weak Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687
11.8.3 Asymptotic Form of a Transient Pulse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 690
11.9 N Waves in Inhomogeneous Media: Spherical Waves . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
11.9.1 N-Wave Propagation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 691
11.9.2 Waves with Spherical Spreading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 692
11.10 Ballistic Shocks: Sonic Booms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 694
11.10.1 Linear Acoustic Model for Sound Generation
by a Moving Body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 695
11.10.2 Geometrical-Acoustics Interpretation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 698
11.10.3 Nonlinear Modifications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700
11.11 Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704
Appendix: Answers and Hints to Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 711

Name Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Subject Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 753

About the Author

Allan D. Pierce was born in 1936 and spent his early

years in Iowa, Kansas, and New Mexico. After receiv-
ing a Ph.D. in Physics from MIT, he was employed
by RAND (1961–1963) and Avco (1963–1966). His
work during these years was concerned primarily with
the analysis of infrasonic waveforms generated by
thermonuclear explosions, and this broadened into a
lifelong interest in all aspects of physical acoustics,
applied mechanics, vibrations, and wave physics. From
1966 to 2012, he held a succession of professo-
rial appointments—at MIT (1966–1973), Georgia Tech
(1973–1988), Penn State (1988–1993), and Boston Uni-
versity (1993–2012). He retired from BU in 2012 and
founded the Cape Cod Institute for Science and Engi-
neering in 2017. He is a Fellow of the Acoustical Society
of America and of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers and is a recipient of the ASA Silver Medal in
Physical Acoustics and the ASA Gold Medal, the ASME
Per Bruel Gold Medal, the Rossing Prize for Acoustics
Education, and the Gold Medal of the Acoustical Foun-
dation of India. Over the years, he has had many editorial
positions, including being the founding co-editor-in-
chief of the Journal of Computational Acoustics and the
Editor-in-Chief of the Acoustical Society of America.
He was the founding editor of Proceedings of Meetings
in Acoustics.

xxxi
List of Symbols

a Radius of sphere, cylinder, or disk

Characteristic dimension of object
an Coefficient in modal expansion of pressure field
Zero of Airy function
an Zero of derivative of Airy function
A Generic designation for amplitude factors
Cross-sectional area
Ray-tube area
AD (X) Diffraction integral, related to Fresnel integrals
As Absorbing power of room, metric sabins
Ai(η) Airy function
A Aspect factor in echo-sounding equation
Age variable for accumulative nonlinear effects
b Frequency band
B Bias in estimate of statistical quantity
Bpl Plate-bending modulus
B(x) Amplitude factor for waveform propagating along ray path
B/A Parameter of nonlinearity for compressible fluid
c Speed of sound
cD , cS Dilatational and shear elastic-wave speeds
cp , cv Specific-heat coefficients at constant pressure and constant volume
cpl Phase velocity of flexural waves on a plate
√
cT Isothermal sound speed = c/ γ
cvν Specific-heat contribution from internal vibrations of ν-type
molecules
C Integration contour in complex plane
C(X) Fresnel (cosine) integral
C+ (L) Decibel addition function, dB

xxxiii
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
under her magic spell, as easily Queen of Venice as Venice was
Queen of the Sea. How at thirty, then in the full radiance of her
beauty, beloved and besought by every hand that could touch her
own, painters vied with each other in matching the tints of her
marvelous skin; sculptors begged for models of her feet to grace
their masterpieces; poets sang her praises, and the first musicians of
Italy wrote the songs that her lovers poured out beneath her
windows. How there had come a night when suddenly the whole
course of her life was changed,—the night of a great ball given at
one of the old palaces on the Grand Canal, the festivities ending with
a pageant that revived the sumptuous days of the Republic, in which
the Contessa herself was to take part.
When the long-expected hour arrived, she was seen to step into her
gondola, attired in a dress of the period, a marvel of velvet and cloth
of gold. Then she disappeared as completely from human sight as if
the waters of the canal had closed over her forever.
For days all investigation proved fruitless. The only definite clue
came from her gondolier, who said that soon after the gondola had
left the steps of her palace, the Contessa ordered him to return
home at once; that on reaching the landing she covered her face
with her veil and reëntered the palace. Later it was whispered that
for many weeks she had not left her apartments. Then she sent for
her father confessor, and at a secret interview announced her
decision never again to appear to the world.
At this point of the story the Professor had risen from his seat and
poured half the flagon in his glass. He was evidently as much
absorbed in the recital as if it had all happened yesterday. I could
see, too, that it appealed to those quaint, romantic views of life
which, for all their absurdities, endeared the old fellow to every one
who knew him.
“For a year,” he continued, “this seclusion was maintained; no one
saw the Contessa, not even her own servants. Her meals were
served behind a screen. Of course, all Venice was agog. Every
possible solution of so strange and unexpected a seclusion was
suggested and discussed.
“In the beginning of the following winter vague rumors reached the
good father’s ears. One morning he left his devotions, and,
waylaying her duenna outside the palace garden, pressed his rosary
into her hands and said: ‘Take this to the Contessa.’” Here the
Professor became very dramatic, holding out his hand with a quick
gesture, as if it clasped the rosary. “‘Tell her that to-night, when San
Giorgio strikes twelve, I shall be at the outer gate of the palace and
must be admitted.’”
Then, pacing up and down the narrow arbor, his face flushed, his
eyes glistening, the old fellow told the rest of the story. “When,” said
he, “the hour arrived, the heavy grated door, the same through which
you can now see the wine casks, was cautiously opened. A moment
later the priest was ushered into a dimly lighted room, luxuriously
furnished, and screened at one end by a silken curtain, behind which
sat the Contessa. She listened while he told her how all Venice was
outraged at her conduct, many hearts being grieved and many
tongues dropping foul slander. He remonstrated with her about the
life she was leading, condemning its selfishness and threatening the
severest discipline. But neither threats nor the voice of slander
intimidated the Contessa. She steadfastly avowed that her life had
been blameless, and despite the earnest appeals of the priest
persisted in the determination to live the rest of her days in quiet and
seclusion. The most he was able to effect was a promise that within
a month she would open the doors of her palace for one more great
ball. Her friends would then be reassured and her enemies silenced.
“The records show that no such festival had been seen in Venice for
many years. The palace was a blaze of light. So great was the crush
of gondolas bringing their beauteous freight of richly dressed
Venetians, that the traffic of the canal was obstructed for hours. Ten
o’clock came, eleven, and still there was no Contessa to welcome
her guests. Strange stories were set afloat. It was whispered that a
sudden illness had overtaken her. Then, as the hours wore on, the
terrible rumor gained credence, that she had been murdered by her
servants, and that the report of her illness was only a cloak to
conceal their crime.
“While the excitement was at its height, a man, in the costume of a
herald, appeared in the great salon and announced the arrival of the
hostess. As the hour struck twelve a curtain was drawn at the farther
end of the room, revealing the Contessa seated upon a dais,
superbly attired in velvet and lace, and brilliant with jewels. When the
hum and wonder of the surprise had ceased, she arose, stood like a
queen receiving the homage of her subjects, and, welcoming her
guests to her palace, bade them dance on until the sun rose over the
Lido. Then the curtains were drawn, and so ended the last sight of
the Contessa in Venice. Her palace was never opened again. Later
she disappeared completely, and the spiders spun their webs across
the threshold.
“Years afterward, a man repairing a high chimney on a roof
overlooking this very garden—the chimney can still be seen from the
far corner below the landing—saw entering the arbor a noble lady,
leaning upon the arm of a distinguished looking man of about her
own age. In the lady he recognized the Contessa.
“Little by little, the story came out. It appeared that immediately after
the ball she had moved to this château, a part of her own estates,
which had been quietly fitted up and restored. It was then
remembered that soon after the château had been finished, a certain
Marquis, well known in France, who had adored the Contessa for
years, and was really the only man she ever loved, had disappeared
from Paris. He was traced at the time to Milan and Genoa, and finally
to Venice. There all trace of him was lost. Such disappearances
were not uncommon in those days, and it was often safer even for
one’s relatives to shrug their shoulders and pass on. Further
confirmation came from the gondolier, who had landed him the night
of his arrival at the water-gate of this garden,—just where we landed
an hour ago,—and who, on hearing of his supposed murder, had
kept silent upon his share in the suspected crime. Inquiries
conducted by the State corroborated these facts.
“Look around you, mon ami,” exclaimed the Professor suddenly.
“Underneath this very arbor have they sat for hours, and in the
window of that crumbling balcony have they listened to the low
sound of each other’s voice in the still twilight, the world shut out, the
vine-covered wall their only horizon. Here, as the years passed
unheeded, they dreamed their lives away. L’amour, l’amour, vous
êtes tout puissant!”
The Professor stopped, turned as if in pain, and rested his head on
his arm. For some moments neither of us spoke. Was the romance
to which I had listened only the romance of the Contessa, or had he
unconsciously woven into its meshes some of the silken threads of
his own past? When he raised his head I said: “But, Professor, you
have not told me the secret she kept from the priest. Why did she
shut herself up? What was it that altered the whole course of her
life?”
“Did I not tell you? Then listen. She had overheard her gondolier say,
as she stepped into her gondola on the fatal night of the great fête at
the Foscari, ‘The Contessa is growing old; she is no longer as
beautiful as she was.’”
I looked at the old fellow to see if he were really in earnest, and,
throwing back my head, laughed heartily. For the first time in all my
intercourse with him I saw the angry color mount to his cheeks.
He turned quickly, looked at me in astonishment, as if unable to
believe his ears, and said sharply, knitting his brows, “Why do you
laugh?”
“It seems so absurd,” I replied. “What did she expect; to be always a
goddess?”
“Ah, there you go!” he burst out again, with flashing eyes. “That is
just like a cold-blooded materialist. I hate your modern Shylock, who
can see a pound of flesh cut from a human heart with no care for the
hot blood that follows. Have you no sympathy deep down in your
soul for a woman when she realizes for the first time that her hold on
the world is slipping? Can you not understand the agony of the
awakening from a long dream of security and supremacy, when she
finds that others are taking her place? The daily watching for the loss
of color, the fullness of the waist, the penciling of care-lines about the
eyes? We men have bodily force and mental vigor, and sometimes
lifelong integrity, to commend us, and as we grow older and the first
two fail, the last serves us best of all; but what has a woman like the
Contessa left? I am not talking of an ordinary woman, nor of all the
good daughters, good wives, and good mothers in the world. You
expect in such women the graces of virtue, duty, and resignation. I
am talking of a superb creature whom the good God created just to
show the world what the angels looked like. I insist that before you
laugh you must put yourself in the place of this noble Contessa
whom all Venice adored, whose reign for fifteen years had been
supreme, whose beauty was to her something tangible, a weapon, a
force, an atmosphere. She had all the other charms that adorned the
women of her day, good-humor, a rich mind, charity, and wit, but so
had a hundred other Venetians of her class. I insist that before
censuring her, you enter the salon and watch with her the faces of
her guests, noting her eagerness to detect the first glance of delight
or disappointment, and her joy or chagrin as she reads the verdict in
their eyes. Can you not realize that in a beauty such as hers there is
an essence, a spirit, a something divine and ethereal? A something
like the bloom on these grapes, adding the exquisite to their
lusciousness; like the pure color of the diamond, intensifying its
flash? A something that, in addition to all her other qualities, makes a
woman transcendent and should make her immortal? We men long
for this divine quality, adore it, go mad over it; and yet when it has
faded, with an inconstancy and neglect which to me is one of the
enigmas of human nature, we shrug our shoulders, laugh, and pass
on. Believe me, mon ami, when that gondolier confirmed the looking-
glass of the Contessa, his words fell upon her ears like earth upon
her coffin.”
If the Professor’s emotion at the close of the story was a surprise to
me, this frenzied outburst, illogical and quixotic as it seemed, was
equally unexpected. I could hardly realize that this torrent of fiery
passion and pent-up energy had burst from the frail, plain little body
before me. Again and again, as I looked at him, the thought ran
through my mind, Whom had he loved like that? What had come
between himself and his own Contessa? Why was this man an exile
—this cheery, precise, ever courteous dignified old thoroughbred,
with his dry, crackling exterior, and his volcano of a heart beneath?
Or was it Venice, with her wealth of traditions,—traditions he had
made his own,—that had turned his head?
Long after the Professor left the garden, I sat looking about me,
noting the broken walls overhung with matted vines, and the little
lizards darting in and out. Then I strolled on and entered the doorway
of the old château, and looked long and steadily at the ruined
balcony, half buried in a tangle of roses, the shadows of their waving
blossoms splashing the weather-stained marble; and thence to the
apartment above, where these same blossoms thrust themselves far
into its gloom, as if they too would search for the vision of loveliness
that had vanished. Then I wandered into an alcove sheltering the
remains of an altar and font—the very chapel, no doubt, where the
good priest had married her; on through the unkept walks bordered
on each side by rows of ancient box, with here and there a gap
where the sharp tooth of some winter more cruel than the rest had
bitten deep, and so out again into the open garden, where I sat down
under a great tree that sheltered the head of a Madonna built into the
wall—the work of Canova, the Professor had told me.
Despite my own convictions, I seem to feel the presence of these
spirits of the past that the Professor, in his simple, earnest way, had
conjured up before me, and to see on every hand evidences of their
long life of happiness. The ruined balcony, with its matted rose vines,
had now a deeper meaning. How often had the beautiful Venetian
leaned over this same iron grating and watched her lover in the
garden below! On how many nights, made glorious by the radiance
of an Italian moon, had they listened to the soft music of passing
gondolas beyond the garden walls?
The whole romance, in spite of its improbability and my thoughtless
laughter, had affected me deeply. Why, I could not tell. Perhaps it
was the Professor’s enthusiasm; perhaps his reverence for the
beauty of woman, as well as for the Contessa herself. Perhaps he
had really been recalling a chapter out of his own past, before exile
and poverty had made him a wanderer and a dreamer. Perhaps!—
Yes, perhaps it was the thought of the long, quiet life of the Contessa
with her lover in this garden.
AMONG THE FISHERMEN
KNOW best the fishing quarter of Ponte Lungo and the
district near by, from the wooden bridge to the lagoon, with
the side canal running along the Fondamenta della
Pallada. This to me is not only the most picturesque
quarter of Venice, but quite the most picturesque spot I know in
Europe, except, perhaps, Scutari on the Golden Horn.
This quality of the picturesque saturates Venice. You find it in her
stately structures; in her spacious Piazza, with its noble Campanile,
clock tower, and façade of San Marco; in her tapering towers, deep-
wrought bronze, and creamy marble; in her cluster of butterfly sails
on far-off, wide horizons; in her opalescent dawns, flaming sunsets,
and star-lit summer nights. You find it in the gatherings about her
countless bridges spanning dark water-ways; in the ever-changing
color of crowded markets; in lazy gardens lolling over broken walls;
in twisted canals, quaint doorways, and soggy, ooze-covered
landing-steps. You find it, too, in many a dingy palace—many a lop-
sided old palace—with door-jambs and windows askew, with lintels
craning their heads over the edge, ready to plunge headlong into the
canal below.
The little devils of rot and decay, deep down in the water, are at the
bottom of all this settling and toppling of jamb and lintel. They are
really the guardians of the picturesque.
Search any façade in Venice, from flowline to cornice, and you
cannot find two lines plumb or parallel. This is because these imps of
destruction have helped the teredo to munch and gnaw and bore,
undermining foundation pile, grillage, and bed-stone. If you listen
some day over the side of your gondola, you will hear one of these
old piles creak and groan as he sags and settles, and then up comes
a bubble, as if all the fiends below had broken into a laugh at their
triumph.
This change goes on everywhere. No sooner does some inhabitant
of the earth build a monstrosity of right-angle triangles, than the little
imps set to work. They know that Mother Nature detests a straight
line, and so they summon all the fairy forces of sun, wind, and frost,
to break and bend and twist, while they scuttle and bore and dig,
until some fine morning after a siege of many years, you stumble
upon their victim. The doge who built it would shake his head in
despair, but you forgive the tireless little devils—they have made it
so delightfully picturesque.
To be exact, there are really fewer straight lines in Venice than in any
place in Europe. This is because all the islands are spiked full of
rotting piles, holding up every structure within their limits. The
constant settling of these wooden supports has dropped the
Campanile nearly a foot out of plumb on the eastern façade,
threatened the destruction of the southwest corner of the Doges’
Palace, rolled the exquisite mosaic pavement of San Marco into
waves of stone, and almost toppled into the canal many a church
tower and garden wall.
Then again there are localities about Venice where it seems that
every other quality except that of the picturesque has long since
been annihilated. You feel it especially in the narrow side canal of
the Public Garden, in the region back of the Rialto, through the Fruit
Market, and in the narrow streets beyond—so narrow that you can
touch both sides in passing, the very houses leaning over like
gossiping old crones, their foreheads almost touching. You feel it too
in the gardens along the Giudecca, with their long arbors and
tangled masses of climbing roses; in the interiors of many courtyards
along the Grand Canal, with pozzo and surrounding pillars
supporting the rooms above; in the ship and gondola repair-yards of
the lagoons and San Trovaso, and more than all in the fishing
quarters, the one beyond Ponte Lungo and those near the Arsenal,
out towards San Pietro di Castello.
This district of Ponte Lungo—the one I love most—lies across the
Giudecca, on the “Island of the Giudecca,” as it is called, and is
really an outskirt, or rather a suburb of the Great City. There are no
grand palaces here. Sometimes, tucked away in a garden, you will
find an old château, such as the Contessa occupied, and between
the bridge and the fondamenta there is a row of great buildings,
bristling with giant chimneys, that might once have been warehouses
loaded with the wealth of the East, but which are now stuffed full of
old sails, snarled seines, great fish-baskets, oars, fishermen, fisher-
wives, fisher-children, rags, old clothes, bits of carpet, and gay,
blossoming plants in nondescript pots. I may be wrong about these
old houses being stuffed full of these several different kinds of
material, from their damp basement floors to the fourth story garrets
under baking red tiles; but they certainly look so, for all these things,
including the fisher-folk themselves, are either hanging out or thrust
out of window, balcony, or doorway, thus proving conclusively the
absurdity of there being even standing room inside.
Fronting the doors of these buildings are little rickety platforms of
soggy planks, and running out from them foot-walks of a single
board, propped up out of the wet on poles, leading to fishing-smacks
with sails of orange and red, the decks lumbered with a
miscellaneous lot of fishing-gear and unassorted sea-truck—
buckets, seines, booms, dip-nets, and the like.
Aboard these boats the fishermen are busily engaged in scrubbing
the sides and rails, and emptying the catch of the morning into their
great wicker baskets, which either float in the water or are held up on
poles by long strings of stout twine.
All about are more boats, big and little; row-boats; storage-boats
piled high with empty crab baskets, or surrounded with a circle of
other baskets moored to cords and supported by a frame of hop-
poles, filled with fish or crabs; barcos from across the lagoon, laden
with green melons; or lighters on their way to the Dogana from the
steamers anchored behind the Giudecca.
Beyond and under the little bridge that leads up the Pallada, the
houses are smaller and only flank one side of the narrow canal. On
the other side, once an old garden, there is now a long, rambling
wall, with here and there an opening through which, to your surprise,
you catch the drooping figure of a poor, forlorn mule, condemned for
some crime of his ancestors to go round and round in a treadmill,
grinding refuse brick. Along the quay or fondamenta of this narrow
canal, always shady after ten o’clock, lie sprawled the younger
members of these tenements—the children, bareheaded,
barefooted, and most of them barebacked; while their mothers and
sisters choke up the doorways, stringing beads, making lace, sitting
in bunches listening to a story by some old crone, or breaking out
into song, the whole neighborhood joining in the chorus.

THE CATCH OF THE MORNING

Up at the farther end of the Pallada and under another wooden
bridge, where two slips of canals meet, there is a corner that has
added more sketches to my portfolio than any single spot in Venice.
An old fisherman lives here, perhaps a dozen old fishermen; they
come and go all the time. There is a gate with a broken door, and a
neglected garden trampled down by many feet, a half-ruined wall
with fig-trees and oleanders peeping over from the garden next door,
a row of ragged, straggling trees lining the water’s edge, and more
big fish and crab baskets scattered all about,—baskets big as
feather-beds,—and festoons of nets hung to the branches of the
trees or thrown over the patched-up fences,—every conceivable and
inconceivable kind of fishing plunder that could litter up the premises
of a pescatore of the lagoon. In and out of all this débris swarm the
children, playing baby-house in the big baskets, asleep under the
overturned boat with the new patch on her bottom, or leaning over
the wall catching little crabs that go nibbling along a few inches
below the water-line.
In this picturesque spot, within biscuit-throw of this very corner, I
have some very intimate and charming friends—little Amelia, the
child model, and young Antonio, who is determined to be a gondolier
when he grows up, and who, perhaps, could earn a better living by
posing for some sculptor as a Greek god. Then, too, there is his
mother, the Signora Marcelli, who sometimes reminds me of my
other old friend, the “Grand Duchess of the Riva,” who keeps the
caffè near the Ponte Veneta Marina.
The Signora Marcelli, however, lacks most of the endearing qualities
of the Duchess; one in particular—a soft, musical voice. If the
Signora is in temporary want of the services of one of her brood of
children, it never occurs to her, no matter where she may be, to send
another member of the household in search of the missing child; she
simply throws back her head, fills her lungs, and begins a crescendo
which terminates in a fortissimo, so shrill and far-reaching that it
could call her offspring back from the dead. Should her husband, the
Signor Marcelli, come in some wet morning late from the lagoon,—
say at nine o’clock, instead of an hour after daylight,—the Signora
begins on her crescendo when she first catches sight of his boat
slowly poled along the canal. Thereupon the Signora fills the
surrounding air with certain details of her family life, including her
present attitude of mind toward the Signore, and with such volume
and vim that you think she fully intends breaking every bone under
his tarpaulins when he lands,—and she is quite able physically to do
it,—until you further notice that it makes about as much impression
upon the Signore as the rain upon his oilskins. It makes still less on
his neighbors, who have listened to similar outbursts for years, and
have come to regard them quite as they would the announcement by
one of the Signora’s hens that she had just laid an egg—an event of
too much importance to be passed over in silence.
When the Signor Marcelli arrives off the little wooden landing-ladder
facing his house, and, putting things shipshape about the boat,
enters his doorway, thrashing the water from his tarpaulin hat as he
walks, the Signora, from sheer loss of breath, subsides long enough
to overhaul a unique collection of dry clothing hanging to the rafters,
from which she selects a coat patched like Joseph’s of old, with
trousers to match. These she carries to the Signore, who puts them
on in dead silence, reappearing in a few moments barefooted but
dry, a red worsted cap on his head, and a short pipe in his mouth.
Then he drags up a chair, and, still silent as a graven image,—he
has not yet spoken a word,—continues smoking, looking furtively up
at the sky, or leaning over listlessly and watching the chickens that
gather about his feet. Now and again he picks up a rooster or
strokes a hen as he would a kitten. Nothing more.
Only then does the Signora subside, bringing out a fragment of
polenta and a pot of coffee, which the fisherman divides with his
chickens, the greedy ones jumping on his knees. I feel assured that
it is neither discretion nor domestic tact, nor even uncommon sense,
that forbids a word of protest to drop from the Signore’s lips. It is
rather a certain philosophy, born of many dull days spent on the
lagoon, and many lively hours passed with the Signora Marcelli,
resulting in some such apothegm as, “Gulls scream and women
scold, but fishing and life go on just the same.”
There is, too, the other old fisherman, whose name I forget, who
lives in the little shed of a house next to the long wall, and who is
forever scrubbing his crab baskets, or lifting them up and down, and
otherwise disporting himself in an idiotic and most aggravating way.
He happens to own an old water-logged boat that has the most
delicious assortment of barnacles and seaweed clinging to its sides.
It is generally piled high with great baskets, patched and mended,
with red splotches all over them, and bits of broken string dangling to
their sides or banging from their open throats. There are also a lot of
rheumatic, palsied old poles that reach over this ruin of a craft, to
which are tied still more baskets of still more delicious qualities of
burnt umber and Hooker’s-green moss. Behind this boat is a sun-
scorched wall of broken brick, caressed all day by a tender old
mother of a vine, who winds her arms about it and splashes its hot
cheeks with sprays of cool shadows.
When, some years ago, I discovered this combination of boat,
basket, and shadow-flecked wall, and in an unguarded moment
begged the fisherman to cease work for the morning at my expense,
and smoke a pipe of peace in his doorway, until I could transfer its
harmonies to my canvas, I spoke hurriedly and without due
consideration; for since that time, whenever this contemporary of the
original Bucentoro gets into one of my compositions,—these old fish-
boats last forever and are too picturesque for even the little devils to
worry over,—this same fisherman immediately dries his sponge,
secures his baskets, and goes ashore, and as regularly demands
backsheesh of soldi and fine-cut. Next summer I shall buy the boat
and hire him to watch; it will be much cheaper.
Then there are the two girls who live with their grandmother, in one
end of an old tumble-down, next to the little wooden bridge that the
boats lie under. She keeps a small cook-shop, where she boils and
then toasts, in thin strips, slices of green-skinned pumpkin, which the
girls sell to the fishermen on the boats, or hawk about the
fondamenta. As the whole pumpkin can be bought for a lira, you can
imagine what a wee bit of a copper coin it must be that pays for a
fragment of its golden interior, even when the skilled labor of the old
woman is added to the cost of the raw material.
Last of all are the boys; of no particular size, age, nationality, or
condition,—just boys; little rascally, hatless, shoeless, shirtless,
trouser—everything-less, except noise and activity. They yell like
Comanches; they crawl between the legs of your easel and look up
between your knees into your face; they steal your brushes and
paints; they cry “Soldi, soldi, Signore,” until life becomes a burden;
they spend their days in one prolonged whoop of hilarity, their nights
in concocting fresh deviltry, which they put into practice the moment
you appear in the morning. When you throw one of them into the
canal, in the vain hope that his head will stick in the mud and so he
be drowned dead, half a dozen jump in after him in a delirium of
enjoyment. When you turn one upside down and shake your own
color-tubes out of his rags, he calls upon all the saints to witness that
the other fellow, the boy Beppo or Carlo, or some other “o” or “i,” put
them there, and that up to this very moment he was unconscious of
their existence; when you belabor the largest portion of his surface
with your folding stool or T-square, he is either in a state of collapse
from excessive laughter or screaming with assumed agony, which
lasts until he squirms himself into freedom; then he goes wild,
turning hand-springs and describing no end of geometrical figures in
the air, using his stubby little nose for a centre and his grimy thumbs
and outspread fingers for compasses.
All these side scenes, however, constitute only part of the family life
of the Venetian fishermen. If you are up early in the morning you will
see their boats moving through the narrow canals to the fish market
on the Grand Canal above the Rialto, loaded to the water’s edge
with hundreds of bushels of crawling green crabs stowed away in the
great baskets; or piles of opalescent fish heaped upon the deck,
covered with bits of sailcloth, or glistening in the morning sun.
Earlier, out on the lagoon, in the gray dawn, you will see clusters of
boats with the seines widespread, the smaller dories scattered here
and there, hauling or lowering the spider-skein nets.
But there is still another and a larger fishing trade, a trade not exactly
Venetian, although Venice is its best market. To this belong the
fishermen of Chioggia and the islands farther down the coast. These
men own and man the heavier seagoing craft with the red and
orange sails that make the water life of Venice unique.
Every Saturday a flock of these boats will light off the wall of the
Public Garden, their beaks touching the marble rail. These are
Ziem’s boats—his for half a century; nobody has painted them in the
afternoon light so charmingly or so truthfully. Sunday morning, after
mass, they are off again, spreading their gay wings toward Chioggia.
On other days one or two of these gay-plumed birds will hook a line
over the cluster of spiles near the wall of the Riva, below the arsenal
bridge, their sails swaying in the soft air, while their captains are
buying supplies to take to the fleet twenty miles or more out at sea.
Again, sometimes in the early dawn or in the late twilight, you will
see, away out in still another fishing quarter, a single figure walking
slowly in the water, one arm towing his boat, the other carrying a
bag. Every now and then the figure bends over, feels about with his
toes, and then drops something into the bag. This is the mussel-
gatherer of the lagoon. In the hot summer nights these humble
toilers of the sea, with only straw mats for covering, often sleep in
their boats, tethered to poles driven into the yielding mud. They can
wade waist-deep over many square miles of water-space about
Venice, although to one in a gondola, skimming over the same
glassy surfaces, there seems water enough to float a ship.
These several grades of fishermen have changed but little, either in
habits, costume, or the handling of their craft, since the early days of
the republic. The boats, too, are almost the same in construction and
equipment, as can be seen in any of the pictures of Canaletto and
the painters of his time. The bows of the larger sea-craft are still
broad and heavily built, the rudders big and cumbersome, with the
long sweep reaching over the after-deck; the sails are loosely hung
with easily adjusted booms, to make room for the great seines which
are swung to the cross-trees of the foremast. The only boat of really
modern design, and this is rarely used as a fishing-boat, is the
sandolo, a shallow skiff drawing but a few inches of water, and with
both bow and stern sharp and very low, modeled originally for
greater speed in racing.
Whatever changes have taken place in the political and social
economy of Venice, they have affected but little these lovers of the
lagoons. What mattered it to whom they paid taxes,—whether to
doge, Corsican, Austrian, or king,—there were as good fish in the
sea as had ever been caught, and as long as their religion lasted, so
long would people eat fish and Friday come round every week in the
year.
A GONDOLA RACE
O-DAY I am interested in watching a gondolier make his
toilet in a gondola lying at my feet, for the little table holding
my coffee stands on a half-round balcony that juts quite
over the water-wall, almost touching the white tenda of the
boat. From this point of vantage I look down upon his craft, tethered
to a huge spile bearing the crown and monogram of the owner of the
hotel. One is nobody if not noble, in Venice.
The gondolier does not see me. If he did it would not disturb him; his
boat is his home through these soft summer days and nights, and
the overhanging sky gives privacy enough. A slender, graceful
Venetian girl, her hair parted on one side, a shawl about her
shoulders, has just brought him a bundle containing a change of
clothing. She sits beside him as he dresses, and I move my chair so
that I can catch the expressions of pride and delight that flit across
her face while she watches the handsome, broadly-built young
fellow. As he stands erect in the gondola, the sunlight flashing from
his wet arms, I note the fine lines of his chest, the bronzed neck and
throat, and the knotted muscles along the wrist and forearm. When
the white shirt with broad yellow collar and sash are adjusted and the
toilet is complete, even to the straw hat worn rakishly over one ear,
the girl gathers up the discarded suit, glances furtively at me, slips
her hand into his for a moment, and then springs ashore, waving her
handkerchief as he swings out past the Dogana, the yellow ribbons
of his hat flying in the wind.
Joseph, prince among porters, catches my eye and smiles
meaningly. Later, when he brings my mail, he explains that the pretty
Venetian, Teresa, is the sweetheart of Pietro the yellow-and-white
gondolier who serves the English lady at the Palazzo da Mula.
Pietro, he tells me, rows in the regatta to-day, and these
preparations are in honor of that most important event. He assures
me that it will be quite the most interesting of all the regattas of the
year, and that I must go early and secure a place near the stake-boat
if I want to see anything of the finish. It is part of Joseph’s duty and
pleasure to keep you posted on everything that happens in Venice. It
would distress him greatly if he thought you could obtain this
information from any other source.
While we talk the Professor enters the garden from the side door of
the corridor, and takes the vacant seat beside me. He, too, has come
to tell me of the regatta. He is bubbling over with excitement, and
insists that I shall meet him at the water-steps of the little Piazzetta
near the Caffè Veneta Marina, at three o’clock, not a moment later.
To-day, he says, I shall see, not the annual regatta,—that great
spectacle with the Grand Canal crowded with tourists and sight-
seers solidly banked from the water’s edge to the very balconies,—
but an old-time contest between the two factions of the gondoliers,
the Nicoletti and Castellani; a contest really of and for the Venetians
themselves.
The course is to begin at the Lido, running thence to the great flour-
mill up the Giudecca, and down again to the stake-boat off the Public
Garden. Giuseppe is to row, and Pasquale, both famous oarsmen,
and Carlo, the brother of Gaspari, who won the great regatta; better
than all, young Pietro, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute.
“Not Pietro of this traghetto, right here below us?” I asked.
“Yes; he rows with his brother Marco. Look out for him when he
comes swinging down the canal. If you have any money to wager,
put it on him. Gustavo, my waiter at Florian’s, says he is bound to
win. His colors are yellow and white.”
This last one I knew, for had he not made his toilet, half an hour
before, within sight of my table? No wonder Teresa looked proud and
happy!
While the Professor is bowing himself backward out of the garden,
hat in hand, his white hair and curled mustache glistening in the sun,
an oleander blossom in his button-hole, Espero enters, also
bareheaded, and begs that the Signore will use Giorgio’s gondola
until he can have his own boat, now at the repair-yard next to San
Trovaso, scraped and pitched; the grass on her bottom was the
width of his hand. By one o’clock she would be launched again. San
Trovaso, as the Signore knew, was quite near the Caffè Calcina;
would he be permitted to call for him at the caffè after luncheon? As
the regatta began at three o’clock there would not be time to return
again to the Signore’s lodging and still secure a good place at the
stake-boat off the Garden.
No; the illustrious Signore would do nothing of the kind. He would
take Giorgio and his gondola for the morning, and then, when the
boat was finished, Espero could pick up the Professor at the Caffè
Veneta Marina in the afternoon and bring him aboard Giorgio’s boat
on his way down the canal.
Giorgio is my stand-by when Espero is away. I often send him to my
friends, those whom I love, that they may enjoy the luxury of
spending a day with a man who has a score and more of sunshiny
summers packed away in his heart, and not a cloud in any one of
them. Tagliapietra Giorgio, of the Traghetto of Santa Salute, is his full
name and address. Have Joseph call him for you some day, and
your Venice will be all the more delightful because of his buoyant
strength, his cheeriness, and his courtesy.
So Giorgio and I idle about the lagoon and the Giudecca, watching
the flags being hoisted, the big barcos being laden, and various
other preparations for the great event of the afternoon.
After luncheon Giorgio stops at his house to change his tenda for the
new one with the blue lining, and slips into the white suit just
laundered for him. He lives a few canals away from the Calcina, with
his mother, his widowed sister and her children, in a small house
with a garden all figs and oleanders. His bedroom is next to his
mother’s, on the second floor, overlooking the blossoms. There is a
shrine above the bureau, decorated with paper flowers, and on the
walls a scattering of photographs of brother gondoliers, and some
trophies of oars and flags. Hanging behind the door are his oilskins
for wet weather, and the Tam O’Shanter cap that some former
padrone has left him, as a souvenir of the good times they once had
together, and which Giorgio wears as a weather signal for a rainy
afternoon, although the morning sky may be cloudless. All gondoliers
are good weather prophets.
The entire family help Giorgio with the tenda—the old mother
carrying the side-curtains, warm from her flat-iron, and chubby
Beppo, bareheaded and barefooted, bringing up the rear with the
little blue streamer that on gala days floats from the gondola’s lamp-
socket forward, which on other days is always filled with flowers.
Then we are off, picking our way down the narrow canal, waiting
here and there for the big barcos to pass, laden with wine or fruit,
until we shoot out into the broad waters of the Giudecca.
You see at a glance that Venice is astir. All along the Zattere, on
every wood-boat, barco, and barge, on every bridge, balcony, and
house-top, abreast the wide fondamenta fronting the great
warehouses, and away down the edge below the Redentore, the
people are swarming like flies. Out on the Giudecca, anchored to the
channel spiles, is a double line of boats of every conceivable
description, from a toy sandolo to a steamer’s barge. These lie
stretched out on the water like two great sea-serpents, their heads
facing the garden, their tails curving toward the Redentore.
Between these two sea-monsters, with their flashing scales of a
thousand umbrellas, is an open roadway of glistening silver.
Giorgio swings across to the salt warehouses above the Dogana and
on down and over to the Riva. Then there is a shout ahead, a red
and white tenda veers a point, comes close, backs water, and the
Professor springs in.
“Here, Professor, here beside me on the cushions,” I call out. “Draw
back the curtains, Giorgio. And, Espero, hurry ahead and secure a
place near the stake-boat. We will be there in ten minutes.”
The Professor was a sight to cheer the heart of an amateur
yachtsman out for a holiday. He had changed his suit of the morning
for a small straw hat trimmed with red, an enormous field-glass with
a strap over his shoulder, and a short velvet coat that had once done
service as a smoking-jacket. His mustachios were waxed into needle
points. The occasion had for him all the novelty of the first spring
meeting at Longchamps, or a race off Cowes, and he threw himself
into its spirit with the gusto of a boy.
“What colors are you flying, mon Capitaine? Blue? Never!” noticing
Giorgio’s streamer. “Pasquale’s color is blue, and he will be half a
mile astern when Pietro is round the stake-boat. Vive le jaune! Vive
Pietro!” and out came a yellow rag—Pietro’s color—bearing a strong
resemblance to the fragment of some old silk curtain. It settled at a
glance all doubt as to the Professor’s sympathies in the coming
contest.
The day was made for a regatta; a cool, crisp, bracing October day;
a day of white clouds and turquoise skies, of flurries of soft winds
that came romping down the lagoon, turned for a moment in play,
and then went scampering out to sea; a day of dazzling sun, of
brilliant distances, of clear-cut outlines, black shadows, and flashing
lights.
As we neared the Public Garden the crowd grew denser; the cries of
the gondoliers were incessant; even Giorgio’s skillful oar was taxed
to the utmost to avoid the polluting touch of an underbred sandolo, or
the still greater calamity of a collision—really an unpardonable sin
with a gondolier. Every now and then a chorus of yells, charging
every crime in the decalogue, would be hurled at some landsman
whose oar “crabbed,” or at some nondescript craft filled with “barbers
and cooks,” to quote Giorgio, who in forcing a passage had become
hopelessly entangled.
The only clear water-space was the ribbon of silver beginning away
up near the Redentore, between the tails of the two sea-monsters,
and ending at the stake-boat. Elsewhere, on both sides, from the
Riva to San Giorgio, and as far as the wall of the Garden, was a
dense floating mass of human beings, cheering, singing, and
laughing, waving colors, and calling out the names of their favorites
in rapid crescendo.
The spectacle on land was equally unique. The balustrade of the
broad walk of the Public Garden was a huge flower-bed of
blossoming hats and fans, spotted with myriads of parasols in full
bloom. Bunches of over-ripe boys hung in the trees, or dropped one