Do Your Ear What I Ear?

Physical Science continued their discussion of sound to day by adding the concepts of harmonics, resonance and ear function to their mental libraries. A couple of video clips illustrating resonance in action highlighted the class period. Tomorrow's lab will center around the idea of wave intensity and the inverse-square relationship between intensity and distance from source. Although the experiment will be conducted with light waves, the same relationship describes how sound intensity varies with source proximity. We should finish our discussion of sound on Thursday and begin to examine light and the electromagnetic spectrum.

Physics conducted a standing wave experiment and saw for themselves how specific must be the conditions for standing waves to form. They also got to view a video clip demonstrating Chladni figures to visualize how standing waves can form on plane surfaces. Honors Physics also watched this video as part of the review for tomorrow's exam. We will revisit standing waves and resonance in the next chapter, which covers sound. The Honors Physics lab on Thursday will allow students to measure the speed of sound using echoes.