Science - Transmission of Sound

Transmission of sound. Every sound is produced by a vibration. Vibration is the back and forth movement of an object. As you speak, vibrations are produced by the vocal cords in the throat. You can hear only when the sound energy reaches your ears. But how does sound energy travel? Wonder how that works? Come. Let's go across to doctor zuck. Sound energy travels in the form of soundwaves. There are mainly two types of waves, transverse wave, and longitudinal wave. Let us see how waves travel. We can use a slinky spring to observe both types of waves. Emily is holding one side of the slinky. While doctor zuck is holding the other end. With a quick upward flick of the wrist, doctor zuck has sent energy traveling through the slinky. Notice how the slinky moves? This is a transverse wave. In a transverse wave, the particles vibrate at a right angle to the direction of the wave. The wave traveled from doctor zuck to Emily and back. Now let's see what a longitudinal wave looks like. Emily is holding one end of the slinky, while doctor zuck is pulling its other end towards himself. And then pushing it towards Emily. Watch closely, and you will notice that some of the coils crowd close together, and then slowly move farther apart. This is because the vibrations are parallel to the direction of the wave. If the wave moves from right to left, then the particles also vibrate from right to left. This is a longitudinal wave. Soundwaves are longitudinal waves. These waves travel at different speeds in different mediums. The medium could be a solid liquid. Or gas. Now let's see how this works. In a solid, the particles are very close together. Sound energy moves as one particle hits the other particle. With the particles being so close together, sound travels quickest through a solid. If we look at particles in a liquid, they appear to be slightly further apart when compared to solid. Thus, sound energy takes a little longer to travel through a liquid. Look at the particles of gas. They are spread out and hence, soundwaves travel most slowly through them. Now we know how sound travels in different media. The vibration of particles produces waves. Wavelength is the distance between two consecutive compressions or rare factions. The number of waves passing through a point in a second is called frequency, and it is measured in hertz. Soundwaves travel in all directions. Sound gets reflected. That is, it bounces back on hitting a solid surface. Bouncing back of sound is called echo. Bouncing back of sound is purposefully used in detecting depth of sea beds. That's amazing, isn't it? Summary every sound is produced by a vibration. Vibrations are produced by our vocal cords when we speak. There are two types of waves, transverse wave, and longitudinal wave. In a transverse wave, the particles vibrate at a right angle to the direction of the wave. In a longitudinal wave, vibrations are parallel to the direction of the wave. Soundwaves are longitudinal waves. Sound travels quickest through a solid. Wavelength is the distance between two consecutive compressions or rare factions. The number of waves passing through a point in a second is called frequency, and it is measured in hertz. Bouncing back of sound is called echo.