Physics
High School (9–10)
General
Waves & Sound › Sound Waves and HearingWaves & Sound › Wave MotionChapter 5Sound
You hear a drum from far away, and you see the lightning before you hear the thunder. How does a sound reach your ear? In this chapter we find out what sound is, why it needs air or some other material to travel, and how fast it goes. Then we describe a sound by its frequency and amplitude, and we learn why a sound can be loud or soft, and high or low. We end with echoes, the human ear and the uses of ultrasound. Python helps us with the calculations.
Part of Physics · High School (9–10) (chapter 5)
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How Sound Is Made and How It Travels
Touch your throat while you talk, and you feel it tremble. Every sound begins with something that vibrates. Here we see how a vibration makes a sound wave, why the wave needs a material to travel in, and how to find the distance of a lightning flash from the sound of its thunder.
Describing a Sound Wave
A drum and a flute can play at the same loudness, but we never confuse them. A whistle is high and a bass drum is low. In this course we describe a sound with its wavelength, frequency and amplitude, and we use the wave equation to connect them with the speed.