Grade: VI Div : Topic : Sound
Name of the student : Roll no :
What is Sound?
Sound is a form of energy which enters into ear and creates sensation of
hearing.
Sound is produced because of vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves
which moves through media such as air and water before reaching our ears.
We may hear many types of sound around us every day. We hear the sound of
your friends and parents talking, the sound of buses and automobiles honking,
the sound of playing a guitar or tabla, the sound of vegetable vendors, the sound
of aero planes overhead etc.
Let us understand how sound waves produced from vibrations and how do
your ears give you the ability to hear them.
SOUND DEPENDS ON VIBRATIONS
Sound is a form of energy and it comes from vibrations. These vibrations
create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water
before reaching our ears, but they cannot travel through vacuum because
there are no particles present to vibrate. Thus, vibration of a particle is
the necessary condition to produce sound.
A rapid back and forth motion of a particle about its mean position is
known as vibration. When we speak, our vocal cord is under vibration.
When a bellis struck, the bell is under vibration. Similarly, when a guitar is
played, its strings are disturbed and they produce vibrations in the
instrument.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 1
SOUND REQUIRES A MEDIUM TO PROPAGATE
Some forms of energy require a medium to travel. Sound is one of them.
When you provide energy, such as mechanical energy, heat energy or
electrical energy, to any kind of matter, the molecules start vibrating
about their mean positions transferring the energy to the neighbor
molecules. This constitutes a wave. A wave is a disturbance that carries
energy without carrying the material with it. Example when you beat a
drum or a table their membranes start vibrating and constituted sound
waves. These sound waves carry sound energy and travel in the air just
like ripples in the water.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 2
SOUND CAN PROPAGATE THROUGH SOLIDS, LIQUIDS AND GASES
Propagation of Sound through Solids
You can easily hear the sound of an approaching train by putting your ear
on the track well before you could hear its sound in the air. Why? This is
because sound travels much faster through steel or iron (a solid) than
through the air (a gas).
Propagation of Sound through Air
Let us take the case of a vibrating tuning fork. A tuning fork serves as a useful
illustration of how a vibrating object can produce sound. The fork consists of
a handle and two tines. When the tuning fork is hit with a rubber hammer, the
tines begin to vibrate. The back and forth vibration of the tines produce
disturbances of surrounding air molecules. As a tine stretches outward from
its usual position, it compresses surrounding air molecules into a small region
of space; this creates a high-pressure region next to the tine. As the tine then
moves inward from its usual position, air surrounding the tine expands; this
produces a low-pressure region next to the tine.
The high-pressure regions are known as compressions and the low-pressure
regions are known as rarefactions. As the tines continue to vibrate, an
alternating pattern of high and low-pressure regions are created. These regions
are transported through the surrounding air, carrying the sound signal from one
location to another.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 3
SOUND PROPAGATES IN ALL DIRECTIONS
Sound is a kind of energy which propagates in all directions. For
example, when your school bell rings, you hear the sound wherever
you are in the campus of your school.
When the diaphragm of a loudspeaker vibrates
due to music or speech, the vibrations move the
molecules of air surrounding it. These air molecules
vibrate about their mean positions, because air
particles are all around us, the waves of sound
travel outward in all directions.
WAVE-Wave is a mode of transmission of energy travelling through a medium.
1. LONGITUDINAL WAVE: The wave formed because of the oscillations
are parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave is called
longitudinal wave. For example; sound waves uses forward and
backward movement of particles of the medium. If a slinky is pushed
and pulled backward and forward, the wave formed in slinky is similar
to longitudinal wave.
Oscillation is parallel to the direction of propagation
of the wave
Here in the diagram R= Rarefaction and C=Compression
Longitudinal wave travels in the form of Compression and
Rarefaction.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 4
Q. Why sound is a type of longitudinal wave?
Sound Wave is longitudinal wave. Sound propagates because of oscillation of
particles of medium are parallel to the direction of propagation of the wave,
thus sound wave is longitudinal wave.
SPEED OF SOUND
Sound travels faster if the medium through which it is travelling becomes
denser. Sound travels fastest through the solids, little slower through
liquids and comparatively slower through the gases or air.
Depending on frequency Sound is divided into three types.
Infrasonic Sound- Frequency less than 20Hz- whales, elephants,
hippopotamuses, rhinoceroses, giraffes, okapis, and alligators are known to
use infrasound to communicate over distances—up to hundreds of miles in
the case of whales.
Audible range- Frequency range 20Hz to 20000Hz- Human Being
Ultrasonic Sound- Frequency Range above 20000Hz-Bat, moths, beetles,
praying mantis and lacewings, Dogs, Cats, Toothed whale, Dolphins,
Rodents, insects and SONAR system
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 5
Echoes
Sound waves can reflect off surfaces.
We hear reflected sound waves as echoes.
Hard, smooth surfaces are particularly good at reflecting [Link] is why empty
rooms produce lots of echoes.
Soft, rough surfaces are good at absorbing sound.
This is why rooms with carpets and curtains do not usually produce lots of
echoes.
Sound travels at a constant speed in a medium.
If we know the speed of sound and the time it takes for the echo to be detected,
we can use the equation:
Speed = distance ÷ time to work out distances.
OR
Distance = speed x time.
Remember in the time taken to hear an echo the sound has
travelled tothe object and back again. To calculate the distance to
the object use half of the time (or calculate half the total distance
there and back)
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 6
Example
A fishing boat sounds its foghorn. The echo from a nearby cliff is heard after 5s. If
the speed of sound is 340 m/s calculate the distance between the fishing boat and
the cliff.
Answer: Distance = speed x time
Speed = 340 m/s
Time for sound to travel to the cliff and back again = 5
stime for sound to travel to the cliff = 5÷2=2.5s
Distance to the cliff = 340 m/s x 2.5 s
Distance to the cliff = 850 m
The distance between the fishing boat and the cliff is 850 m.
The necessary conditions for hearing an echo can be,
The distance between the sound source and the place where it
is reflected from must not be less than 17m and the period
between hearing the original sound and its echo should not be
less than 0.1 ofa second.
The human ear cannot distinguish between two successive sounds if the
time gap between them is less than 0.1second the place from where it is
beingreflected must be presented to hear the echo such as the walls, the
mountains, or the water bodies.
The speed of sound while traveling in air is 340m/s, so the distance
travelled by the sound and its echo in 0.1s would be 34m.
The distance travelled by the sound is 17m from the sound source to the
place where it will be reflected from and 17m from the same place to the
ear.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 7
Using echoes
Sonar
Sonar uses ultrasound to detect objects underwater the sound wave is reflected
off the ocean bottom.
The time it takes for the sound wave to return is used to calculatethe depth of the
water.
The distance the wave travels is twice the depth of the ocean.
This is the distance to the ocean floor plus the distance for the wave to
return.
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 8
Reducing echo
****************************************************************************************
IGCSE/GRADE 6/ PHYSICS/ SOUND 9