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Homi Bhabha Competition Test Series

SOUND
What is sound : Vibrations that travel through the air or another medium and can be heard
when they reach a person's or animal’s ear.

Do you ever wonder how you hear all the different sounds around you? Every day, you hear
sounds when you talk to your family and friends, listen to music, go to the playground, and do
so many different things! Well, you hear all of these sounds because of sound vibrations.
Sound waves are longitudinal waves, which means particles of the medium vibrate back
and forth (parallel to the direction of wave travel), not up and down like in transverse waves
(e.g., light waves or waves on water).

Did you know that the vocal chords in your throat vibrate? That's how they create sound so
that you can talk and sing! Put your hand up to your throat and then sing a silly song. You can
feel your vocal cords vibrating as the air you push upward moves them rapidly back and forth
to create sound.

Sound waves are invisible, but they are waves that move up and down much like these.

• Dogs can hear sound at a higher frequency than humans, allowing them to hear noises
that we can't.

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• The speed of sound 20°C is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour].

• When traveling through water, sound moves around four times faster than when it
travels through air.
• The scientific study of sound waves is known as acoustics.

How does sound move or propagate?

The vibration is started by some mechanical movement, such as someone plucking a guitar
string or knocking on a door. This causes a vibration on the molecules next to the mechanical
event (i.e. where your hand hit the door when knocking). When these molecules vibrate, they
in turn cause the molecules around them to vibrate. The vibration will spread from molecule to
molecule causing the sound to travel. Sound must travel through matter because it needs the
vibration of molecules to propagate. Because in outer space, sound cannot propagate at all in
a vacuum (as vacuum has no matter), it's very quiet. The matter that transports the sound is
called the medium.

Sounds as vibrations can travel through many different materials.

• Sound can travel through solids, like metal, stone and wood.

• Sound can travel through liquids, like water.

• Sound can travel through gases, like air.

Sound vibrations travel better through some materials than others. For example, sound
vibrations travel very well along metal pipes.

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How does sound travel in different envirornnents?

Sound waves need to travel through a medium such as a solid, liquid, or gas.

The sound waves move through each of these mediums by vibrating the molecules in the
matter. The molecules in solids are packed very tightly.

Liquids are not packed as tightly as solids. And gases are very loosely packed. The spacing of
the molecules enables sound to travel much faster through a solid than a gas.
Sound travels about four times faster and farther in water than it does in air. This is why
whales can communicate over huge distances in the oceans.

Sound waves travel about 10 to 11 times faster in wood than in air, depending on the type of
[Link] also travel faster on hotter days as the molecules bump into each other more often
than when it is cold.

solid liquid gas

Sound waves travel fastest through solids.
The particles in a solid are closer together than in a gas or a liquid. This means vibrations are more easily passed from particle to particle and so
sound travels faster.

Pitch of a sound
The pitch of a sound is how high or low the sound is. A high sound has a high pitch and a low sound has a low pitch.

A short string gives a higher-pitched sound than a long string when they are plucked. A tight drum skin
gives a higher-pitched sound than a loose drum skin.

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pitch

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Propagation of Sound
Propagation Sound also gets propagated in the form of waves. Sound is
produced when an object is disturbed and starts vibrating.

Noise Pollution
Noise is generally used as an unwanted sound, which produces unpleasant effects and
discomfort on the ears. Sound becomes unwanted when it either interferes with normal
activities such as sleeping, conversation, or disrupts or diminishes one's quality of life. Not all
noise can be called noise pollution.
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Loudness is measured in units called as decibels (dB). The normal human ear can detect
sounds that range between 0 dB (hearing threshold] and about 140 dB, with sounds between
120dB and 140 dB causing pain.
Acoustics
Acoustics is the interdisciplinary science that deals with the study of mechanical waves in
gases, liquids, and solids including vibration, sound, ultrasound, and infrasound
The human ear responds to sounds with frequencies in the range from 20 Hz to 20,000 Hz.
This is called the audible range of the human ear.

In audible sound waves whose frequencies are less than 20 Hz are in the infrasonic range.
Sources of infrasonic waves include earthquakes, thunder, volcanoes and waves produced by
vibrating heavy machinery. Elephants can detect sounds as low as ~14–16 Hz; whales also
communicate in infrasonic frequencies over long distances.
Frequencies above 20,000 Hz are in the ultrasonic range. The audible range of dogs, cats,
moths and mice extends into ultrasound frequencies. They can hear very high frequencies that
humans cannot.

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Sound in Musical Instruments

lala tarang:

Jal Tarang is a musical instruments, which uses different sizes of bowl filled with different
amount of water and two wooden sticks to create music

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Wood or Wind Instruments

Sound is produced in wood wind instrument by blowing the air. The shorter the
air column will produce high pitch and vice a versa. Different types of wind
instruments are :

• Flute
• Bagpipe
• Saxophone
• Shehnai
• Been

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