$diffraction in sound$

Interference happens to all types of waves, including sound waves. From the toot made by blowing over a bottle to the recognizability of a great singer’s voice, resonance and standing waves play a vital role in sound. Only the resonant frequencies interfere constructively to form standing waves, while others interfere destructively and are absent. When a certain length is obtained, the sound of the tuning fork will resonate through the column.Īll sound resonances are due to constructive and destructive interference. The changing water level changes the length of the resonating air column. Now fill the pipe with some water and repeat. Place it near the mouth of the pipe and hear the sound. Choose a tuning fork and strike it to make it vibrate. Fix it so that it stands upright with the open end on top. Tuning forks and pipes may be used to demonstrate the concept of resonance. As the driving frequency gets progressively higher than the resonant or natural frequency, the amplitude of the oscillations becomes smaller, until the oscillations nearly disappear and your finger simply moves up and down with little effect on the ball. When you drive the ball at its natural frequency, the ball’s oscillations increase in amplitude with each oscillation for as long as you drive it. As you increase the frequency at which you move your finger up and down, the ball will respond by oscillating with increasing amplitude. If you move your finger up and down slowly, the ball will follow along without bouncing much on its own. At first you hold your finger steady, and the ball bounces up and down with a small amount of damping. Most of us have played with toys where an object bobs up and down on an elastic band, something like the paddle ball suspended from a finger in Figure 14.18.

$diffraction in sound$

The phenomenon of driving a system with a frequency equal to its natural frequency is called resonance, and a system being driven at its natural frequency is said to resonate. The natural frequency is the frequency at which a system would oscillate if there were no driving and no damping force. Over time the energy dissipates, and the amplitude gradually reduces to zero- this is called damping. This is a good example of the fact that objects-in this case, piano strings-can be forced to oscillate but oscillate best at their natural frequency.Ī driving force (such as your voice in the example) puts energy into a system at a certain frequency, which is not necessarily the same as the natural frequency of the system. It will sing the same note back at you-the strings that have the same frequencies as your voice, are resonating in response to the forces from the sound waves that you sent to them. Sit in front of a piano sometime and sing a loud brief note at it while pushing down on the sustain pedal.

$diffraction in sound$

Before the start of this section, it would be useful to review the properties of sound waves and how they are related to each other, standing waves, superposition and interference of waves.

$diffraction in sound$

Diffraction in sound