Properties of sound
A sound wave is a mechanical wave (or mechanical vibration) that transit through media such as gas (air), liquid (water), and solid (wood).
Quality Of Sound
A sound or a sound wave is defined as the energy produced due to the vibrations of particles in a medium. When any medium produces a disturbance or vibrations, it causes a movement in the air particles which produces sound waves. Molecules in the air vibrate about a certain average position and create compressions and rarefactions. This is called pitch which is defined as the frequency of sound. The frequency is defined as the number of oscillations in pressure per second.
Categories of Sound Wave
People perceive sound in different ways, like a medico student takes sound as vibration produced by objects reaching the human eardrum. A physicist perceives sound as vibration produced by an object, which produces disturbances in nearby air molecules that travel further. Both of them describe it as vibration generated by an object, the difference is one talks about how it is received and other deals with how it travels and propagates across various mediums.
Because the human ear is so sensitive to sounds, it can detect very small intensities. The lower intensity that a human can hear (which is represented with the symbol I0
) is about 1x10-12 W/m2. However, a loud music venue may have sounds that are near 1.0 W/m2 (though sound as this intensity would cause permanent damage to your ears). Because the human ear can detect frequencies over such a large range of intensities, more often a sound intensity level is used. This level is defined as:
β=10⋅log10II0
and the unit is dB which stands for deci-bels (or just decibels). If a person speaks with an intensity of 0.701 μ
W/m2, what is the sound intensity level in decibels? Note: In the space below, please enter you numerical answer. Do not enter any units. If you enter units, your answer will be marked as incorrect.
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