Physics 212 Lecture: "Sound Waves I." Feb 4, 1998

• Sound waves are longitudinal.
• Human ears are very sensitive, able to detect sound waves which are only teeny-tiny perturbations of ordinary air density.
• Sound waves can travel through gas, liquid or solid media.
• In general, denser materials have higher sound speeds -- but not always.
• The sound speed increases with increasing temperature in a gas.
• The intensity of sound waves is measured in by dividing the power of a wave by an area through which it passes.
• Sound intensity from an isotropic source falls as the inverse square of the distance from the source.

This lecture discusses material in Chapter 16 of Cutnell and Johnson.

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Copyright © Michael Richmond. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.