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What Is Sound?
What Is Sound?
Sound is actually an energy wave of molecules that create a vibration. Sound can travel through and bend around many objects, including water. Check out how sound works:
· When an object moves it creates a vibration.
· Vibrations move air particles around.
· These moving particles are constantly bumping into each other.
· Our ears can pick up these "particle-vibrations" as sound.
· Fast moving particles create a high sound, while slow ones are low-sounding.
Sound Check; Sound waves are also called, "pressure waves." This is because they push the particles they are passing through.
Hey! What Did You Say?
Hey! What Did You Say?
Our ears are the connection to sound waves. But did you know there is a whole lot of stuff going on in there?
Human ears are specially designed to catch every little sound, sort of like a funnel. Deep inside our ears there are tiny bones and an eardrum. When sound waves enter our inner ear, these begin to vibrate. The sound vibrations then make their way into a fluid-filled chamber called, the cochlea. From here the vibrations tickle tiny hairs that are connected to our hearing-nerve (auditory nerve). These nerve cells then transmit to the auditory part of our brain, where they are sorted out. The ear-brain connection is how we can distinguish between different sounds.
Sound Check; the hearing of a fox is so good it can hear a mouse squeaking 100 meters (330 feet) away. It can even catch the sound of a mouse scratching underground!
Did You Feel that Sound?
Did You Feel that Sound?
You may have felt sound at work with a huge rumble of thunder. You not only could hear it, but if the storm was close enough, you could possibly feel the noise through your entire body.
Let's try a fun experiment. Place your hand over your throat. Now hum a tune. You should feel a vibration. This is your vocal cords moving very rapidly back and forth. Sound is like this vibration when it moves through objects. A purring cat is also another excellent way to feel sound at work.
Sound Check; lightning makes the way for us to hear thunder. A bolt of lightning will heat up air particles very quickly. These particles are then pushed outwards, making a huge sound wave better known as, thunder.
The Speediness of Sound
The Speediness of Sound
Although sound does not travel as fast as light, it is still pretty speedy. Sound travels at different rates through different objects. Check out the speed of sound through these mediums.
Sound travels through dry air the slowest. It hits speeds of 343 meters-per-second. This means it can go one mile (1.6 kilometers) in around five seconds.
Sound travels even faster in water at 1,482 meters-per-second.
Sound travels the fastest through steel at 4,512 meters-per-second..
Sound Check; the voice of a whale can travel up to 800 kilometers (479 miles) through the ocean waters!
Sound Facts
Sound Facts
Learn some interesting facts about sound that you might not have known. Understand how sound waves come from vibrations and how your ears give you the ability to hear them. Find out what the speed of sound is, how sound relates to music, the meaning of acoustics and much more.
· Sound comes from vibrations. These vibrations create sound waves which move through mediums such as air and water before reaching our ears.
· Our ears vibrate in a similar way to the original source of the vibration, allowing us to hear many different sounds
· Dogs can hear sound at a higher frequency than humans, allowing them to hear noises that we can’t.
· Sound is used by many animals to detect danger, warning them of possible attacks before they happen.
· Sound can’t travel through a vacuum (an area empty of matter).
· The speed of sound is around 767 miles per hour (1,230 kilometres per hour).
· The loud noise you create by cracking a whip occurs because the tip is moving so fast it breaks the speed of sound!
· 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.
· Although music can be hard to define, it is often described as a pleasing or meaningful arrangement of sounds.
· The sound of thunder is produced by rapidly heated air surrounding lightning which expands faster than the speed of sound.
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Hearing
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Your ears are extraordinary organs. They pick up all the sounds around you and then translate this information into a form your brain can understand. One of the most remarkable things about this process is that it is completely mechanical. Your sense of smell, taste and vision all involve chemical reactions, but your hearing system is based solely on physical movement.
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