Sound

Folks started on Sound today and it was a relatively noisy lab that C Block had to endure. The sound waves from tuning forks, voices and a telephone dialer were analyzed to look at pure tones, overtones and frequency combinations. Most folks are intrigued by how a touch-tone phone actually provides information on the number you punch and how their voices look when plotted as a wave. We'll discuss the lab tomorrow and start on an introduction to sound.

B Block finished up their Simple Harmonic Motion lab and discussed that, which basically took us to the bell. Tomorrow, you folks get to work on the lab that C Block slogged through today.

E and F Blocks started their discussion of sound in class today with a review of the basic properties of sound (longitudinal, mechanical wave)and then a look at hearing/vocalization ranges of organisms and the use of ultrasonic waves in medicine and by animals for navigation and food capture. We ended the period with an overview of the Doppler Effect and discussed some examples where it is commonly noticed (race cars on tracks, emergency vehicle sirens) and how it was used by Hubble to document an expanding universe. Tomorrow, on to sound intensity and the decibel scale.