sound and its characters
Uploaded by pavan on Jul 02, 2014
SOUND AND ITS CHARACTERISTICS
We are well aware of the property of sound in our routine life, train reaching the platform, ringing bell, blowing whistle etc. are the best examples for sound. Sound is a form of energy produced by vibrating bodies and travels in the form of wave ,while travelling it moves from place to other place by transporting the energy and this makes sensation of hearing to our ears, since the vibrations move from one place to another the particles of the medium move closer to each other and produce compression and at the same time when they move away from each other they produce rarefaction. Therefore compressions are points of high pressure and rarefactions are the points of low pressure. Sound requires a material medium to travel, for example vibrations in the tuning fork can be produced only when external force is applied manually with hand, string in the sonometer will produce vibrations after applying external force. Sound can travel in solids, liquids and gases but it cannot travel in vacuum. We can easily know the motion of sound in solids, for example putting our ears on the rail we can easily observe the sound produced from the coming train, in a similar way sound will be produced in the river water as well as sea water which is a liquid.When we make comparision between light and sound where both are form of waves, light do not require any material medium to travel because energy in the light can move from one place to other by means of oscillating electric and magnetic fields present in them, light can travel anywhere even in space. Sound waves are mechanical waves, we can classify mechanical waves into two types
1. Transverse waves
2. Longitudinal waves
Transverse waves:- If the particles of the medium vibrate perpendicular to the direction of propogation of waves, such type of waves are called transverse waves. Light is form of transverse electromagnetic waves which contain electric and magnetic fields which are perpendicular to each other.
Longtiudinal waves:- If theparticles of the medium vibrate parallel to the direction of propogration of waves we can call them as longitudinal waves. Sound waves are longitudinal waves.
CHARACTERISTICS OF SOUND:-
1. Wave length:- The distance between the crest and trough is a wavelength. Crest is...