Sound Waves Research Paper

Acoustics is the branch of physics concerned with the study of sound. Sound is a wave made of vibrations in the air. Waves can be measured in a range of different ways: by their amplitude, wavelength, frequency, speed, and, at times, their phase. Sound information is transmitted by the amplitude and frequency of the vibrations, where the amplitude is experienced as loudness and frequency as pitch. The vibration is started by some mechanical movement and this causes a vibration on the molecules next to the mechanical event. 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 waves must travel through a medium or material because it needs the vibration of molecules to propagate. These kinds of vibrational waves have another name: longitudinal waves. In fact, there are two main types of waves: transverse and longitudinal.

Transverse waves are where the vibration is at 90 degrees to the motion of the waves. On the other hand, sound waves work in a completely different way. …show more content…
But all sound waves are different too and they are many components that play into this. The energy something makes when it vibrates produces sound waves that have a definite pattern. Each wave can be big or small. Big sound waves have what's called a high amplitude or intensity and we hear them as louder sounds while small waves are the opposite. Amplitude is a metric method associated with hearing. It is commonly grouped with intensity, loudness, or volume. Apart from amplitude, another thing worth noting about sound waves is their pitch, also called their frequency. Soprano singers make sound waves with a high pitch, while bass singers make waves with a much lower pitch. The frequency is simply the number of waves something produces in one