The Physics of Sound
Sound surrounds us at all times. The ring of an alarm clock or the whistle of birds may wake us up in the morning. Through out the day, we hear a variety of sounds; for instance, the banging of pots and pans, the roar of traffic, and the voices of people. When we fall asleep at night, we might listen to the sounds of frogs croaking or the wind whistling. All sounds have one thing in common. This being that the vibrations of an object makes every sound. When an object vibrates, it causes the air around it to vibrate. The vibrations in the air travel out from all directions of the object. They then reach our ears, and the brain reads them as sounds. Many sounds we hear travel through the air; however, they can also travel through solid objects like the earth. Our voice is made in the larynx, which is a part of the throat. Two small pieces of tissue are spread across the larynx. These pieces, called vocal chords, make the opening smaller. Air from he lungs quickly passes trough the tightened chords, causing them to vibrate. The vibrations make the sound of the voice. The tighter the chords are, the faster the vibrations and the higher the resulting sound. If a rock is thrown onto a still pond, several waves travel out from
The number of compressions and rarefractions per second is called frequency, The more rapidly and object vibrates, the higher the frequency. Frequency is measured in hertz. As the frequency of a sound wave increases, the wavelength decreases. Wavelength is the distance between one point on a wave to the corresponding point on the next wave. Most people hear sounds with frequencies that fall between 20 and 20,000 hertz. Many animals can hear sounds about 20,000 hertz. A person's voice can have a range of about 85 to 1,100 hertz. The loudness of a sound is how strong the sound is to us when it hits our ears. At a certain frequency, the more intense the sound is, the louder it seems. Equally intense sounds of different frequencies are not equally loud. Sound makes life more interesting. Without it things would be dull and boring. Because of sound we are able to verbally communicate with others, show emotions, and express our beliefs. Sound is a very important factor in the lives of many. If sound travels at about the same speed in both materials with the same density, little sound will be reflected. Instead, most of the sound will be transmitted into the new medium. If the speed differs greatly in the two mediums and the
Some common words found in the essay are:
Da Vinci, , sound waves, sound travels, speed sound, sound wave, sounds frequencies, sound reflected, air travel, object vibrates, vibrate vibrations, moves waves,
Approximate Word count = 830
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)
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