KS4 Physics

Waves: Sound

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Contents

Waves: Sound

What is sound?
Sound and reflection
Structure of sound waves

Hearing sound

Ultrasound

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What causes sound?

Take a tuning fork and strike it against a block of wood.

What do you observe?

The tuning fork vibrates

and you hear a sound.

Sounds are made when

an object vibrates.

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Good vibrations!
What vibrates so that the following make sounds?
violin
strings drum
skin

voice box

loudspeaker
cone

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How does sound travel?
How does sound reach your ear?
longitudinal wave

When the drum skin is struck, it vibrates which causes

the air beside the drum to vibrate.
The compression and stretching of air particles creates a
sound wave which is carried through the air to your ear.
What type of wave is a sound wave?

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 The bell-jar experiment

Place a ringing clock inside the bell jar and what happens?
There is air inside the bell jar
so the sound can travel and be heard.

vacuum
pump on Remove the air from the bell jar
and what happens to the sound?

With a vacuum inside the bell jar,

the sound cannot be heard. Why?

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How fast does sound travel?
You need a quiet open space at least 100 m long
to perform this investigation.
START STOP

00:00 34
00

100 m

1. When you see the cymbals crash, press START.

2. When you hear the cymbals crash, press STOP.

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 How fast does sound travel?
 Record the results of your sound experiments in a table.
sound distance time speed
(m) (s) (m/s)
1 100 0.34 294
2
3
4

How are these values used to estimate the speed of sound?

distance 100
speed = = = 294 m/s
time 0.34

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 How fast does sound travel?
The speed of sound in air is about…

340 m/s
 Use the results of the cymbals experiment
to calculate your average speed of sound.

How does your calculation for the average speed of sound

compare with the real speed?
What errors could have affected the results of your cymbals
experiment?

Do you think the speed of sound in water is the same

as it is in air?

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Different speeds of sound

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Sound and states of matter
Sound waves need a substance to travel through.
What are all substances made of? particles

solid liquid gas

What is the particle model of a solid, a liquid and a gas?

In which state are the particles closest together? solid

In which state are the particles furthest apart? gas

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Sound and states of matter
Sound waves travel by particles vibrating.
What state does sound travel fastest through and why?

solid liquid gas

Sound waves travel fastest through solids.

The particles in a solid are closer together than in a gas or

a liquid. This means vibrations are more easily passed
from particle to particle and so sound waves travels faster.

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Sound or light – which is faster?
During a thunderstorm,
thunder and lightning are
created at the same time.
Which do you notice first?

Usually, you see lightning

before you hear thunder .
Light travels much faster
than sound.

The speed of light is… 300 000 000 m/s

How much faster is light than sound?
How could you use thunder and the speed of sound
to estimate how far away a thunderstorm is?

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Breaking the sound barrier!
Which of these travel faster than the speed of sound in air?

distance time speed

(m) (s) (m/s)
small
600 5 120
aeroplane
jet fighter 900 2 450

cheetah 50 2.5 20

meteorite 10 000 0.35 28 571

The jet fighter and the meteorite break the sound barrier.
What does this mean?
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Contents

Waves: Sound

What is sound?
Sound and reflection
Structure of sound waves

Hearing sound

Ultrasound

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Reflected sound waves

What happens when a sound wave meets a

hard flat surface?

The sound wave is reflected back from the surface.

What type of sound does this produce? echo

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Experiment on echoes
Stand at least 100 m from a large, flat wall with a stop watch.
START

150 m

STOP
1. Use a starting pistol (or clapper board) to make a sound.
2. Measure the time taken between firing the pistol and
hearing the echo. How far does the sound travel?

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Experiment on echoes
The sound of the starting pistol takes 0.92 s
to travel a distance of 300 m.

How can you use this result to estimate the speed of sound?
distance
speed =
time
300
=
0.92
= 326 m/s
Repeat the experiment several times to obtain an average.
How does your calculation for the average speed of sound
compare with the real speed?
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Echoes and reflection

What do we call reflected sound? an echo

Are hard or soft surfaces best at reflecting sound?

Hard surfaces produce strong echoes.

How are echoes reduced in cinemas and theatres?

By using soft materials on the walls such as curtains.

Name two animals that use echoes for navigation or

communication.
bats and dolphins

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Contents

Waves: Sound

What is sound?
Sound and reflection
Structure of sound waves

Hearing sound

Ultrasound

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Studying sound waves
Sound waves can be studied with this type of equipment.
loudspeaker
oscilloscope

signal generator

Which piece of equipment…

• produces signals over a range of signal generator
frequencies and of varying amplitudes?
• converts signals into sound waves? loudspeaker
• is used to study the frequency and
oscilloscope
loudness of a sound?

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Why sound is quiet or loud?
What is the difference between the sound wave of
a quiet sound and a loud sound?

quiet sound loud sound

The loud sound has taller waves.
The louder the sound, the greater the amplitude.
What would the sound wave of a very loud sound look like?

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Which is the loudest?
Which trace represents the loudest sound?

A B
Sound A is the loudest.

Sound A has the largest amplitude, which means the

wave has more energy and so the sound is louder.

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Why sound is low pitch or high pitch?
What is the difference between the sound wave of
a low pitch sound and a high pitch sound?

low pitch sound high pitch sound

The high pitch sound has a shorter wavelength,
so more waves are visible. It has higher frequency waves.

What would the sound wave of a very low sound look like?

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Which is the highest?
Which trace represents the sound with the highest pitch?

A B
Sound B is the highest pitched.

Sound B has the shortest wavelength and the most

number of waves visible, so it has the highest frequency.

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Wave animation

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Contents

Waves: Sound

What is sound?
Sound and reflection
Structure of sound waves

Hearing sound

Ultrasound

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 How does the ear hear?
1.Sound waves are 6.The auditory nerve
collected by the takes the signals
ear lobe or to the brain.
pinna. 6
4
1

2 3 5
2.The waves
travel along 5.The cochlea
the ear canal. turns these
into electrical
3.The waves 4.The small bones signals.
make the ear (ossicles) amplify
drum vibrate. the vibrations.

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How does the ear hear?

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Can we hear all frequencies?
Set the volume and increase the frequency of the signal
provided by the signal generator.

Humans cannot hear sounds of every frequency.

The range of frequencies you can hear is called your
hearing range.
What is the hearing range of a healthy young person?
20 Hz to 20 000 Hz
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Do we have the same hearing?
Does everyone have the same hearing range?

We all have slightly different hearing ranges

but almost 1 in 5 people suffer some sort of
hearing loss.

Temporary hearing loss may be caused by ear infections

and colds after which hearing recovers.

Permanent hearing loss and deafness can be present at

birth or occur if the ear is damaged or diseased.

People lose the ability to hear sounds of high frequency

as they get older.
Which end of their hearing range will be affected?

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 Comparing hearing ranges
Do all animals have the same hearing range?
100 000

10 000

1 000
frequency
(Hz) 100

10

0
human dog bat elephant mouse dolphin

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How is loudness measured?
The loudness of a sound is measured in decibels (dB).
0 dB = quietest audible sound (near total silence)
10 dB = 10 times more powerful than the quietest sound
20 dB = 100 times more powerful than the quietest sound

How much more powerful than the quietest sound is 30 dB?

1000 times

A whisper is 30 dB and normal conversation is 60 dB.

How much more powerful is normal conversation compared
to a whisper? 1000 times

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When is sound dangerous?

Any sound above 85 dB can damage hearing.

You know you are listening to 85 dB sound
if you have to raise your voice to be heard.
What might also influence hearing loss?

The amount of time spent listening to a loud sound

also causes hearing problems.
Any 140 dB sound causes pain and immediate damage!
More than two hours of 100 dB sound can damage your ears.

Why are there laws about the maximum levels of sound

that people should be exposed to at work?

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What is noise?
A noise is any unwanted sound.
What one person considers noise another person might not.
Can you name any examples?
List three effects of noise.
headaches
nausea
deafness

List three ways of reducing the effects of loud noise.

ear protectors
double glazing
putting noisy machinery in insulated rooms

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How loud is loud?
decibels

160 personal stereo

140 permanent
aircraft ear damage
overhead 120
loud
100 bell

80
quiet
60 circular saw
countryside
at 2m
40
pin being 20
dropped can just
0 be heard

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How is hearing tested?
The results of a hearing tested are shown on an audiogram.
intensity of sound (dB)

loud sound

moderate sound

soft sound
frequency of sound (Hz)

low pitch high pitch

The audiogram shows hearing sensitivity for different
frequencies (pitch) at different intensities (volume).
It records the softest sound heard at each pitch .

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Testing hearing
Which audiogram trace represents optimal hearing and
which represents impaired hearing?

impaired
intensity of sound (dB)

hearing

optimal
hearing

frequency of sound (Hz)

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Contents

Waves: Sound

What is sound?
Sound and reflection
Structure of sound waves

Hearing sound

Ultrasound

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What is ultrasound?
The upper frequency limit of human hearing 20 000 Hz.
Any high frequency sound above 20 kHz is called…
ultrasound

Whales and dolphins communicate using ultrasound.

Why does a dog whistle vibrate at ultrasound frequencies?

Can you name another human use of ultrasound?

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Using ultrasound
Which of the following does not use ultrasound?
imaging fetuses
dolphins
jewellery cleaning
ultrasonic toothbrush
viewing kidney stones
bats
ultrasonic cleaning
echo location
submarines
It’s a trick question! All of the above involve ultrasound.
High frequencies can be very useful!

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 Using ultrasound in medicine
Ultrasound is the name given to a medical technique.
It uses high frequency sound waves to produce images of
inside the body without opening up the body.

fetus at 10 weeks fetus at 20 weeks

XWhy
raysisare
ultrasound for scanning
more energetic fetuses instead
and penetrating of X
and are rays
a lot more
which would
dangerous, give
they a clearer
could causepicture?
damage to the growing baby.

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How does ultrasound imaging work?

Ultrasound, like all sound, is reflected when it meets

different boundaries. So how is this used for imaging?
An ultrasound machine transmits high-frequency sound
waves into the body.
These sound waves are reflected different amounts by
different tissues.

The reflected waves are

detected by a receiver.
A computer turns the distance
and intensities of these echoes
into a two-dimensional image.

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Sound multiple choice

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